


Two Foolish Jinchuuriki

by Happy_Ocelot



Category: Naruto
Genre: Crack, Gen, Infinite Tsukuyomi, Post-Naruto Time Skip | Naruto Shippuden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 29,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28446897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happy_Ocelot/pseuds/Happy_Ocelot
Summary: Naruto has a dream: to save his fellow jinchuuriki – and the world – from the Akatsuki. Killer B is only too happy to agree. Whether they'll save the world or turn it into a circus is anyone's guess, but they do end up making a lot of people very, very mad.Naruto goes missing-nin and gives Tsunade a massive migraine. Crack.
Comments: 50
Kudos: 101





	1. Prologue to Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> Just a story I'm posting here for back-up.
> 
> Please enjoy and review. :)

Once upon a time, there arose Five Great Villages from the abyss of the Warring States Era.

Konoha, Suna, Iwa, Kiri, and Kumo.

Each village had its fair share of august inhabitants, evil villains, ordinary people going about their lives, and once in a blue moon, some truly insane personalities who turned everything upside down.

And in the villages of Konoha and Kumo, there were _two_ such insane personalities, extremely similar despite the barriers of time, space, and age. If their respective villages were not mortal enemies, they would have probably met far sooner and become friends much earlier than they did.

But well, they did meet eventually, when the boy from Konoha was sixteen and the man from Kumo was thirty-five.

They both dreamed the same dream: to save people like themselves – _jinchuuriki_ – from the evil designs of the Akatsuki.

And even more crucially, they were both determined to make the dream a reality, and would do so at all costs.

It was just that half of the things they did in pursuit of that dream infuriated everyone from Tsunade to Zetsu, unleashed an international manhunt, and drove their friends, family, and enemies to the depths of homicidal rage.

Naruto and Killer B weren't exactly the sharpest kunai in the pouch, after all.

In the thrall of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, that was what Killer B dreamed of, with a smile on his whiskered face.

* * *

Naruto sighed as he gulped down his final bowl of ramen for the night. It sure was draining to be on such a high stakes mission.

"You really have grown, haven't you, Naruto? Getting sent to rescue the Kazekage of all people," said Old Man Teuchi jovially. "What do you think, Ayame?"

His daughter paused in the motion of chopping up some black pepper. "Hmmm? Oh, yeah!" She winked at their Number One Customer. "Naruto-kun, I remember when you used to be a kid and you said that when you'd become Hokage, you would make ramen the official food of Konoha. And now look at you, all grown up!"

Father and daughter laughed uproariously.

"Looks like the Kazekage owes our future Hokage a big favor," Teuchi said, beaming.

"Ohhh, bring him over here when he comes to visit Konoha!" Ayame requested, half-jokingly, half-seriously. "If _two_ Kages endorse our little Ichiraku Ramen, we'll become millionaires!"

Naruto wondered what Gaara's favorite food might be, and if he would enjoy eating at Ichiraku. Then he shook his head vigorously. _Of course_ Gaara would like Ichiraku. Who didn't like Ichiraku? Ramen was the food of the gods and the future Hokage! Maybe...maybe the next time Gaara was in Konoha, he _could_ treat the newly minted Kazekage to some free ramen…

If anyone deserved free ramen, it was Gaara. Gaara deserved to get free ramen for the rest of his life. He'd suffered _so much_ , yet he'd remained strong and brave, and he'd become Kazekage and won the love and respect of his villagers.

A long way from the lonely jinchuuriki who used to cry himself to sleep, having no cuts and bruises on his skin, but only a dreadful ache in his heart.

"You got it!" Naruto said with determination. Ramen with Gaara it was. "When he comes around here, you'll get yourself a new customer!"

With that, Naruto paid up and waved goodbye to Teuchi and Ayame.

He whistled a jaunty tune as he made his way home, trying to feign cheerfulness.

The mission to rescue Gaara had upset him a lot more than he was willing to let on.

But try as he might, he just couldn't get to sleep that night. A slew of nightmarish images flooded his mind, as though waiting for nighttime to begin their romp through his thoughts.

 _A monster looking out at him through beady black eyes, more tanuki than human. The word "love" carved into_ _his_ _forehead, but only bleak emptiness in_ _his_ _heart._

" _I'm just a reminder of the past that the villagers would like to erase."_

" _You fight for others?" said the half-human, half-tanuki Gaara, with a bark-like laugh. "Just love only yourself and it'll be enough."_

 _But Haku said that it's when you fight for something precious to you that you truly become strong!_ _Naruto remembered._

_Then the scene shifted and Gamabunta was countering Shukaku's Air Bullets with his own Water Bullets. The forest was drenched in a hurricane._

_In the end, Gaara was defeated with nothing more than a simple head slam and a tiny ounce of Kyuubi chakra._

_That day, Gaara finally found something to fill the void in his heart. The word etched on his forehead became more than just a word._

_And he became Kazekage, but…_

_The world faded_ _into the dark_ _._

_The ghastly image of Deidara sitting on Gaara's cold, stiff corpse materialized in his mind._

" _Why?" he wanted to yell. His vision was tinted crimson._

_Gaara had tried so hard. He'd overcome every obstacle and now...this?!_

_Why couldn't jinchuuriki like them_ ever _be happy? Why were they always hunted down and treated like monsters?_

_Couldn't he do anything about it? Chiyo baa-chan said that there were other jinchuuriki out there._

_Were they all going to end up the same way as Gaara? Would some Akatsuki freak drain the life out of them and desecrate their corpses?_

_He didn't want anyone to suffer the way Gaara had suffered, ever again._

* * *

Killer B frowned as he stared at his book of rhymes.

Rhymes? What would rhyme with rhyme? Slime? Lime?

He sighed. Some days were better than others, and this day was worse than others. Not a single good freaking rhyme all day. Something was messing with his brain waves.

" _Thank goodness for that something_ ," Gyuuki muttered. " _Now I can finally take a nap without listening to your hideous rap."_

" _THAT'S IT, Eight-o!"_ Killer B roared. " _Nap and rap_. _Those rhyme. You've sure got some shine, fool!"_

" _Oh my God. What is wrong with you, B?"_

Killer B hastily jotted down the unintentional rhyme as the door to the Raikage's office slammed shut in the distance.

Gyuuki noted the excited gait of the new arrivals and perked up his ears. Killer B was, of course, totally oblivious.

" _B."_

No response. Now his idiot human was polishing his sunglasses.

" _B!"_

Damn it. Was he just going to...ignore Gyuuki until he took drastic measures?

" _B! Listen up, you idiot!"_

The fool finally looked up. _"Now, now, don't get in a huff. I heard you the first time. What's the rush?"_ he rapped.

" _Didn't you notice? The spies who were sent to Suna have returned. They're discussing something big."_

Killer B shrugged. _"What's it got to do with me?"_

" _It's something to do with their jinchuuriki!"_ Gyuuki said, straining his ears. _"Go a bit closer to the door and listen to what they're saying."_

Sure enough, as Killer B approached the door, little snatches of the overheard conversation confirmed it: something big had happened.

"...Kazekage is no longer a jinchuuriki, Raikage-sama..."

"...rescued by another jinchuuriki..."

"...from Konoha, Raikage-sama..."

"...have gone back to their own villages..."

The bijuu and his human stared at each other for a long time in their shared mind space. Killer B discreetly backed away from the door.

" _Konoha has a jinchuuriki?"_ he asked, for once, not rapping.

The ox demon nodded. " _Yeah. I think Konoha has the Kyuubi. And as for Suna...what did they mean, the Kazekage isn't a jinchuuriki anymore? Did something happen to Shukaku?"_

" _Shukaku?"_

" _Ichibi. Annoying little sand tanuki. We don't talk,"_ Gyuuki clarified.

Before B could question the Hachibi further, the door burst open and the two spies, X and Y, came rushing out.

They stopped and sank into low bows once they saw B casually leaning against the wall.

"B-sama," they both intoned.

Killer B grinned and slapped them on the back so hard that the crack of their vertebrae could be heard echoing across the mountains. Poor X and Y almost collapsed from shock.

"No need to be so formal, you guys!" he said. "I hope you got the prize? Imagine my surprise, to see you here now and not at sunrise!"

He beamed, clearly expecting applause for his hideous rhymes, and deflating when none came his way. X looked like his ears were bleeding. Y just looked resigned.

"Anyway," B said, dropping the rhymes. "What happened with Konoha and Suna?"

X and Y exchanged looks.

"Um...I don't think we're supposed to tell you, B-sama. Raikage-sama might get angry..." X said cautiously.

"Eh, what does it matter, X?" said Y casually. "He's the Raikage's brother. I think it's fine."

Y scratched his blonde hair. "Well...it seems as though the jinchuuriki of Konoha was involved in some kind of mission to rescue the Kazekage from some group called Akatsuki, who appear to be hunting jinchuuriki..."

"And?" B pressed. Now _this_ was shaping up to be interesting. A jinchuuriki-hunting criminal group?

X cleared his throat. "He succeeded, but the Kazekage isn't a jinchuuriki anymore for some reason...and anyway, that's all we know, B-sama."

"Gotcha." B raised his fist expectantly, and was rewarded with two fist bumps.

"Well, we have to go now, B-sama," said Y.

"Later, B-sama," said X.

" _Well, Eight-o,"_ said B, watching the two chuunin run off. The gears in B's brain were turning and alarm bells were going off in Gyuuki's head. _"Isn't that funny? Jinchuuriki saving jinchuuriki...from some group called Akatsuki..."_

" _B..."_ Gyuuki shot B a reproachful look. _"I know what you're thinking, but the Raikage will_ not _be happy if you – "_

" _It's true! Jinchuuriki need to help jinchuuriki! It's a scary world and we have to be bold!"_

" _B, don't you dare – "_

" _Don't resign yourself to fate! That's how you'll get a fair shake!"_

" _Damn it..."_

" _To Konoha we goooo!"_

" _I don't get paid enough for this,"_ the Hachibi sighed. _"Well, it could be...fun, I guess. At any rate, we do need a vacation..."_

And thus, idiot number one sped off towards Konoha in the dead of night, bypassing all of the security guards (chakra suppression, what a wonderful, wonderful ability, in Gyuuki's opinion).

He left without even leaving a note or message in his excitement at having cooked up such a hare-brained scheme.


	2. Chaos

The exact moment when idiot number two fell asleep was when idiot number one finally reached Konoha, again, bypassing all of the security guards and the intruder alert system set up by the village (chakra suppression, what a wonderful, wonderful ability, in Gyuuki's opinion).

" _Yo, Eight-o,_ " said B. _"Where might Nine-o be?"_

" _Look for any human who seems to have two chakras. Especially massive amounts of crimson red chakra."_

" _Just like Yugito and me?"_

" _That's right, B, now...oh, there he is!"_ exclaimed Gyuuki. _"In that apartment over on that side of the village."_

Killer B set off at breakneck speed, reaching Naruto's house in record time and hammering on the window without a care in the world.

* * *

_CLATTER._

_CLATTER._

_SLAM._

Naruto blearily opened his eyes. Who the hell would call him at this hour at night, and _right_ when he'd gone to sleep? Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei? Incredibly unlikely. Everyone was tired from the mission and they didn't have any team appointments tomorrow.

_SLAM._

"Okay, okay, I'm coming!" he called out irritably, grumbling under his breath.

He slowly shuffled into the kitchen, fumbling for the light.

Then he stopped and stared. And _stared_. And _stared._

There was some random...guy hanging out in front of his kitchen window at...he squinted at the clock...3:14 am.

Said guy was wearing a _Kumogakure standard shinobi uniform_ (how the hell did he get into the village?), a pair of sunglasses, a tattoo with the character for "iron" on his bicep, and a happy, tacky smile on his mustachioed face.

He also seemed to be sprouting octopus tentacles out of his back.

Naruto did what any normal (and abnormal) shinobi would have done in his situation. He snatched up a stray knife from the kitchen table, hurled it at the bearded, tentacled interloper, and yelled so loudly that he would have woken up everyone in town.

In a flash, the octopus man was beside him, clapping a hand over Naruto's mouth.

"Shhh," Octopops whispered. "Don't blow our cover, it'll be a bummer."

Naruto wrenched the offending hand away from his mouth and glared ferociously at the strange man. "Who are you and _why_ did you break into my house in the middle of the night?"

"I'm a jinchuuriki, the Hachibi's my man, we do what we can!" said Octopops. "Jinchuuriki need to help jinchuuriki no matter the hour, so don't be so sour!"

Naruto just stared at Killer B like he'd dropped in from the fruitcake factory. "Um...what?" he asked. "Could you...repeat that?"

"The name's Killer B. I'm a jinchuuriki. I don't mean to be a bother, but the Raikage's my brother!" B said, with a magnetic smile.

Naruto counted from one to ten, then pinched himself. The smiling tentacled man didn't disappear. At least he seemed...friendly.

So he wasn't a figment of Naruto's imagination, then?

"So...let me get this straight," Naruto said. "You are the Hachibi jinchuuriki, Killer B, and you're the Raikage's brother…?"

"Yo!" B confirmed, extending his hand. "Give me a fist bump!"

Naruto thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. What the hell, he seemed okay. There were weirder things in life...like people who hated ramen.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, the future Hokage, ya know!" he proclaimed in way of introduction.

Naruto and Killer B bumped fists for the first time ever.

Killer B grinned. And Naruto couldn't help but grin back.

* * *

It was 4:36 am and Naruto and Killer B were still chatting amiably on the couch.

 _Plans_ had to be made, after all.

"So, Octopops, you're saying that we need to pick up and save the other jinchuuriki _before_ the Akatsuki can get their grubby hands on them first?"

"That's right-o! Eight-o and I were just discussing the best course of action so that our plan can gain some traction!" said B proudly.

Naruto was quiet for a moment. How odd it was that as soon as he thought up the plan in his dreams, some jinchuuriki from Kumogakure would show up with the same idea. And a jinchuuriki who was friends with his own bijuu, to boot.

"That's true and all, but my friends and baa-chan will get worried if I just run off on my own without telling them, ya know," Naruto said.

Killer B abruptly stopped smiling. "Oh...oh no," he muttered.

"Huh? What's the matter?" asked Naruto.

"I...I didn't leave a note. Big Bro is gonna have a stroke." A thin trickle of sweat made its way down B's face. It wasn't because of the weather.

"On the other hand, we do need to leave immediately, 'cause who knows how many jinchuuriki they'll capture if we don't start now," Naruto muttered, his chin in his hand. "We don't want something like what happened to Gaara happen again..."

Then Naruto's face suddenly cleared. The effect was as astonishing as the sun peeking through a curtain of gray clouds.

"I get it!" Naruto said, jumping up and pumping a fist in the air. "We'll just leave a note here, explain what we're doing, and ask them not to worry! It'll be perfect!"

Then Killer B's face also cleared up. "Naruto, I see you're very smart! Go pack up your things now and then we can start!"

Gyuuki was silent within Killer B's mind.

" _It...it seems like this kid is another fool. Two fools to deal with now?"_

He sighed.

Naruto hurried back into his room, eager to pack up his clothes, ninja tools, ramen, ninja tools, and more ramen...and of course, write his "note."

Gyuuki watched the sight in bemusement. Naruto seemed to have packed about a hundred cups of ramen into one poor storage scroll.

" _He...he_ is _a fool. How does the Kyuubi manage this kid?"_

Though he directed the question to the fox whom he could clearly discern within Naruto, there was no response.

" _Ugh. The fox is playing possum again."_

"OK!" Naruto said, giving B a thumbs-up and a big smile. "Let's go, Octopops!"

He tacked the note to his fridge and the two jinchuuriki flew off into the night (chakra suppression, what a wonderful, wonderful thing; the fact that Killer B had Naruto cloak them both in the same chakra helped matters greatly).

* * *

Damn it.

Freaking damn it.

It wasn't even ten in the morning yet and Tsunade was already on sake bottle three.

_Freaking Naruto and his stupid freaking nonsense this early in the day._

"Shizune!" she barked. Next to her, poor Shizune stood ramrod straight.

"Y-yes, Tsunade-sama?" her poor apprentice-slash-paperwork handler squeaked.

"Get Team 8 – actually, go get all of Naruto's classmates and Team Guy! _And_ Izumo and Kotetsu," Tsunade said. She rubbed her temples tiredly. A migraine was already starting to develop in the base of her skull.

Freaking Naruto.

Shizune scurried off to summon said teams while Sakura and Kakashi both stared at Tsunade nervously.

"Did you have any prior knowledge of this?" Tsunade asked for the tenth time.

Both of them shook their heads vigorously, again for the tenth time.

 _That little punk._ Of all the times to go missing-nin on the village, he picked _now_? Tsunade was going to have his head on a pike when she finally got hold of him (and she most definitely _would_ ).

Shizune thankfully took no time at all in locating Naruto's peers.

Eleven people filed into the room, staring at Tsunade's ruddy cheeks and thunderous expression with an odd blend of puzzlement, indifference, and spine-chilling fear.

"Tsunade-sama," they all greeted respectfully.

"Good morning," she said blackly. "I have called you all here regarding Naruto's whereabouts."

"Naruto's whereabouts?" asked Kiba, completely oblivious to Kakashi-sensei shaking his head in alarm. "He's back in the village? His training with Jiraiya-sama is over?"

Tsunade silenced him, mercifully, with a single glance. Then she beckoned towards Neji of all people and handed him a slip of paper.

"Read it out loud, Neji, nice and clear," said Tsunade.

"Why is Neji allowed the opportunity to read the paper?" Shino complained. "Is it because he is a jounin?"

"Just be quiet," Sakura hissed.

Neji stared at the paper for several excruciating seconds, then began to read out loud in a blank, deadpan voice.

" _Yo, everyone! I know this is kinda sudden and all, but I need to leave the village for a few.._. _months. Some random jinchuuriki came here and we decided that we need to save everyone else so that no one ends up like Gaara! But don't worry about us, Octopops is a really cool guy and he isn't a danger to the village or anything!_

_To Kakashi-sensei: Please water my plants while I'm gone._

_To Ichiraku: IOU three thousand ryo. I'll pay you when I'm back._

_To Sakura-chan: Please tell baa-chan not to get mad._

_Naruto :)"_

There was a long, long silence.

"You forgot something, Neji," said Tsunade. "Next to his name."

"Oh." Neji blinked at the note. "Smiley face."

The silence resumed.

Well, this was awkward. It looked like Shikamaru, Chouji, Hinata, Izumo, and Kotetsu wanted to laugh, but were deathly afraid of doing so. Everyone else had a "Naruto, what the hell did you do?" expression.

"And _this_ note is why..." Tsunade took a gulp from her bottle. "I'm sending Team 8, Team 10, and Team Guy on a mission." She glared at a pale Izumo and Kotetsu. "As for you two, we'll be having a talk about how Naruto and this...unknown person slipped through our intruder alert system."

"Tsunade-sama...to clarify," said Shino. "Naruto ran away with someone called Octopops to save 'jinchuuriki' and wants Kakashi-sensei to water his plants while he's gone. And therefore we are tasked with finding him?"

Tsunade finished off sake bottle three with a final gulp. "Correct! Shizune, please brief these teams on everything before they set off."

She rubbed her temples again.

Freaking Naruto.


	3. Many Searches Begin

Unbeknownst to the Konoha ninja, the exact same scene was playing out in the Raikage Tower...except that instead of binge-drinking, the Raikage had decided to punch some holes in a few walls as a stress reliever.

"X, Y!" the Raikage roared. "Are you positive that you were the last people to see B?"

"Y-yes, Raikage-sama," poor X squeaked, his back ramrod straight. A Shizune-like posture, even though they'd never met.

The Raikage turned to his beleaguered secretary. "Mabui! Did you find any trace of B? Ransom note? Blood? Anything broken?"

"No, Raikage-sama," Mabui said, cool as a cucumber. "B-sama appears to have vanished into thin air."

The Raikage smashed open the window, clearly not content with tormenting the poor walls.

"C! Darui!" he bellowed.

"Yes, Raikage-sama," the two bodyguards intoned.

"You two take Karui and Omoi with you. Form a search party now!"

They silently bowed and took off.

The breeze wafted in from the broken window and pushed a few papers on the Raikage's desk onto the floor.

Mabui winced. The walls and window were going to take a handsome sum of money to repair. _Why_ did Raikage-sama always binge-destroy whenever he got upset?

 _She_ , on the other hand, had full confidence in B. He was the strongest ninja in the village. There were very, very few people in the world who could even land a scratch on him. Woe betide anybody who would try to harm him in any way. It...it wouldn't end well (for their ears or for the rest of their body).

And as the Kumo search party set out to find the village's runaway jinchuuriki, it seemed as though C and Darui were of the same mind as Mabui.

"Darui," asked C as they sped out of the village and into the countryside proper. "How much money would you bet that B-san is just on a secret vacation or something?"

"I'd bet my whole salary," Darui said. "It's really dull that we're asked to go on a wild goose chase to find him, though."

"Don't say that, you guys," yelled Omoi. "What if B-sama was kidnapped by a gang of wild ninja monkeys? Or maybe a gang of wild ninja donkeys? Or maybe he fell into a lake and drowned – "

"What is _wrong_ with you, Omoi?" Karui yelled right back. "B-sama knows how to swim. And there is no such thing as ninja donkeys!"

"But there _are_ ninja monkeys!"

C and Darui exchanged tired looks.

Babysitting B's teen students was going to take up half the mission time, wasn't it?

* * *

In Konoha, chaos still reigned supreme as the three teams prepared to search for their village's runaway jinchuuriki.

Shizune had just come back to the Hokage's office with an armful of scrolls from the library.

"Here, Shikamaru-kun. Copies of the scrolls from the First and Second Hokage's collection. This has all the extant information on jinchuuriki. Read it, please, and then put it to good use in finding Naruto-kun."

Chouji raised his hand. "Um...Shizune-san, what's a jinchuuriki?"

Tsunade sighed. "I forgot that Sarutobi-sensei didn't want to let the village youngsters know." She got up from her desk and started pacing around the office. "I trust you're all aware that the Kyuubi attacked this village sixteen years ago and was defeated by the Yondaime?"

"Yes…?" said Ino, clearly unsure of the direction in which the conversation was heading.

"Well, the Yondaime won...by sealing the Kyuubi into Naruto's stomach." Tsunade faced the window, arms clasped behind her back. "That's what a jinchuuriki is. A human who is a vessel for a bijuu. And there are nine such bijuu, just like the Kyuubi. Which means there are nine possible jinchuuriki."

A shell-shocked silence pervaded the room. Only Team Guy seemed unsurprised, having just come back from the jinchuuriki rescue mission.

"And Gaara used to be a jinchuuriki until the Akatsuki took the bijuu out and killed him. He was only brought back to life because of Chiyo-sama and...Naruto," Tenten finished.

"That's horrible," Hinata said firmly. "If Naruto-kun wants to rescue the other jinchuuriki from the Akatsuki, isn't that a noble thing?"

"It may well be noble, but it's stupid. And dangerous," said Tsunade. "Firstly, we don't even know who all the Akatsuki are. Secondly, if _Naruto_ gets kidnapped by them, it'll be a disaster. Thirdly, the fool will start a war if he roams around the world collecting jinchuuriki. Jinchuuriki belong to their respective hidden villages, and if a Konoha ninja tries to grab them and run, the other Kage will _not_ be pleased. And _fourthly_ , leaving the village without authorization is illegal. I know he doesn't mean any harm, but the council elders, Homura and Koharu, will take it the wrong way. They'll want to declare Naruto a missing-nin."

Tsunade avoided thinking about what _Danzo_ would do if he found out. She would cross that bridge when she came to it.

"Please be discreet when looking for him," Shizune said. "Here, if you run across any bystander who may have seen him, show them this picture and ask for confirmation."

She passed a photo to Ino without looking at it, preoccupied with sorting out the scroll collection for Shikamaru.

Ino's forehead veins started bulging as she stared at the picture. "Shizune-san..."

"Yes?"

"What the hell? We can't show people this." She held up the picture.

It was Naruto's ninja registration photo.

He was twelve. It was not current.

And most importantly, his face was painted with white and red make-up. He was striking a dramatic pose. Like he was an actor in a play. How was it even allowed to become his official picture?

Shizune finally glanced at the photo for the first time and stared in horror.

"Ts-Tsunade-sama..." Poor Shizune was shaking like a leaf. "We – we don't have any other..."

"No worries," said Kakashi soothingly. "I filled out the new paperwork for Team Kakashi last week. I have a better photo."

He passed Ino a recent photo of the sixteen-year-old Naruto, sporting a mane of spiky blonde hair, a thumbs-up, and a smile, face thankfully free of any make-up. Shizune sighed in relief. Hinata leaned over Ino's shoulder to take a peek. Her cheeks turned rosy pink. He was...cute.

"Oh, yeah, Tsunade-sama, how did you even find about this so soon?" asked Kiba. "I mean, Team 7 didn't have any missions today, did they? So Naruto not being seen in public wouldn't have scared anyone, right? Wouldn't you all have just thought he was sleeping in or something?"

"I went to Naruto's house to force-feed him his daily nutritional meal intake," Kakashi said. "Then I – "

"Daily nutritional meal intake?"

Kakashi's eyes crinkled as he smiled. "Now, Kiba, why do you think Naruto hasn't died yet from eating too much ramen?"

Tenten's jaw was hanging open slackly. Neji's eyes were twitching...and Kakashi just kept smiling.

"I found this note stuck to his fridge and then I gave it to Tsunade-sama. And you all know the rest now." He swept his hands expansively.

"Right. Sakura and Kakashi, I want you two to go to Suna," said Tsunade in a brisk voice. "The Kazekage needs to know about this in case Naruto goes there, and do request him for any help he can give." She clapped her hands. "Well, the briefing is complete. I'm entrusting you all with this task because you're his friends and you know him better than anyone. If anyone can find Naruto, it will be you. Now good luck!"

Before they left, Shikamaru went to Ichiraku and purchased a secret map of all the ramen shops throughout the Five Great Nations. Naruto was bound to get hungry over the course of his little adventure. And wherever ramen went, Naruto went. That was an ironclad rule.

Kakashi took Naruto's plants with him. They needed to be watered, after all.

And so, the Konoha search party set off to find their runaway jinchuuriki.

* * *

"Itachi-san..." said a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to a shark. "Would you mind telling me which jinchuuriki we're supposed to be hunting now? I am...not fully aware of what transpired in the previous meeting."

"Tobi rushed at you, yelling 'Kisame-senpai!' and wrapped you in a bone-crushing hug. You passed out from the pain and the Leader told me to keep you updated when you finally woke up," said Itachi in a monotonous voice.

Kisame _blushed_. It looked very odd on his blue visage. Unlike most of the Akatsuki, he was actually fond of Tobi, but bone-crushing hugs…? Really?

"To answer your question, we're searching for the jinchuuriki of the Yonbi. His name is Roshi, and he lives only three kilometers away."

"Oh?" Kisame smiled. "Used your Sharingan genjutsu to make some country bumpkin talk, eh, Itachi-san?"

Itachi didn't answer.

They had a jinchuuriki to capture.

* * *

Meanwhile, two runaway jinchuuriki had already crossed the borders into the Land of Earth, looking for a third.

"Octopops, who should we find first? The Gobi jinchuuriki? The Rokubi jinchuuriki?" asked Naruto.

" _Naruto,"_ spoke Gyuuki. _"We are now in the Land of Earth."_

Naruto almost fell off his tree branch in shock. In his mind space was an ox demon with eight tentacles and purplish skin. _"Oh, it's you. Hachibi. Um...hi…?"_

" _The name's Gyuuki."_

" _Right. Nice to meet ya, Gyuuki!"_

" _Yeah. Anyway, this country is the home of Iwagakure. They have_ two _jinchuuriki, not one."_

" _Huh?"_ asked Naruto. _"But Konoha and Suna only have one, ya know."_

" _I'll tell you why later._ _But_ _Iwagakure has the jinchuuriki of both the Yonbi and Gobi,"_ Hachibi explained. _"So you'll have your work cut out for you. I'd advise searching for any humans who have two chakras within a fifty kilometer radius. It's a dead giveaway of a jinchuuriki. It's how B and I found you, as a matter of fact."_

" _Humans who have two chakras...within a fifty kilometer radius?"_

Naruto frowned as he tried to zero in on any distant chakra. During their training, Ero-sennin had told him that he had great sensory ninja potential, better than any student he'd ever trained, and they'd even practiced it a few times. But it wasn't something they'd really _focused_ on. He wasn't an expert on it or anything.

To his surprise, he picked up not one, not two, not three, but _four_ massive chakra signatures a little over ten kilometers away.

His heart leapt into his throat. "Eight-o, Octopops, did you feel that?"

" _Yep,"_ the two chorused.

They picked up their pace.

The chakra was emanating from a lonely field facing a cliff.

"Oh...my...God." Naruto stopped breathing for a moment.

Black cloaks with red clouds.

A field of _lava_.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto yelled.

He sped towards Itachi and Kisame, fully-formed Oodama Rasengan in hand.


	4. Samehada Gets Indigestion

"OODAMA RASENGAN!" Naruto roared.

Kisame turned around in shock, only for the massive chakra sphere to slam into his shoulder and send him spiraling face-down into a brand-new crater.

The field was shaken with a tectonic plate-shifting explosion.

For a moment, the Oodama Rasengan shone brighter than the sun. Deidara was right. Art _was_ an explosion.

And Naruto was quite artistic indeed.

It was a testament to his own strength and stamina that Kisame didn't straight-up _die_ when he got hit with the Rasengan. The vast majority of shinobi _would_ have bit the dust, but Kisame merely sustained a moderate shoulder injury, due to his sword, Samehada, catching part of the blast, and eating some of the chakra. He wasn't called the Bijuu Without a Tail for no reason.

Kisame slowly staggered to his feet, looking around for the source of the blast. He didn't have to search too hard.

"Old man with the beard, don't worry! I, Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage, am here to save you!" Naruto bellowed, sprinting forwards and running directly into the field of lava. Unfortunately, Naruto was wearing open-toed sandals.

"Shark guy! Get ready to die!" yelled Killer B, holding his many, many swords in his arms, mouth, knees, and armpits. He too ran directly into the lava field, and he too was wearing open-toed sandals.

There was perfect shocked silence for a good thirty seconds as Itachi, Kisame, and Roshi just stared at the two new arrivals.

Perfect silence, except for the rustling of the tree leaves in the late afternoon breeze.

Then Hachibi broke it. _"Naruto, B..."_

" _Yeah, Eight-o?"_ the two foolish jinchuuriki asked.

" _You guys are standing in lava."_

" _...Oh..."_

Naruto and B both stared at the ground. Molten red lava was trickling onto their shoes. Their open-toed shoes.

"OUCH!"

"HOT, HOT, HOT, YA KNOW!"

Naruto began a one-footed hop back to the edge of the lava field. B dropped all of his swords in his haste to get away.

"It's good to see you again, Naruto-kun," said Itachi, ever politely. "May I ask whom your acquaintance is?"

"The name's Killer B, I'm the Hachibi jinchuuriki! Here to save everyone...from you Akatsuki!" said B proudly. Three rhymes in a row!

"Octopops, now isn't the time to be rapping at our enemies!" Naruto snapped. "We have to save...um..." He turned to the redheaded, bearded man. "What's your name again, old man?"

"Roshi." He stared at Naruto and B in amazement. "And you're a jinchuuriki, Kumo ninja? Did I hear that right?"

"Hey, I'm a jinchuuriki too!" Naruto protested. "Don't let Octopops get all the attention, ya know!"

" _What?"_

"I see that you're just as much a comedian as ever, Naruto-kun," said Kisame, hefting Samehada in his hands and leering menacingly. "But save your jokes for the underworld. How foolish of you two to jump directly into a hunter's trap."

In the real world, Itachi and Kisame easily defeated poor old Roshi, jinchuuriki of the Yonbi. He fought valiantly, but in the end, he was felled by Samehada's chakra absorption ability. Roshi was captured unconscious and brought to the Akatsuki lair, where his bijuu, Son Goku, was extracted from him, killing him instantly. He was only brought back to life as an Edo Tensei by Kabuto to fight against his fellow jinchuuriki, until he was, ironically, liberated by Itachi, the man who had assisted in his capture.

In this dream world, things went slightly differently. Starting with…

"Oh! My eyes! Is that Samehada, Kiri's top prize?" asked Killer B, noticing the giant sword for the first time.

"You have heard of my blade?" Kisame stroked its purple scales lovingly. Samehada purred, bloated from its Naruto chakra meal. "Yes, Samehada, the greatest of the Seven Swords of the Mist. I'm sure it will find your chakra most delectable, jinchuuriki."

"Octopops, the sword eats our chakra. We have to be careful," Naruto warned. "I've been up against these two before – "

"Before, ya fool?"

"Yeah, Itachi over there is my friend Sasuke's brother. He has the Sharingan and he killed his whole clan! He can send you to a genjutsu nightmare world with just a glance!"

"Indeed," Roshi said. "The shark man is a piece of work. You kids should have just stayed away."

"Awww, don't say that, Grandpa Roshi!"

"Don't call me Grandpa or old man! I'm still young!" Roshi snapped.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" yelled Naruto, forming another Oodama Rasengan and charging towards the shark ninja. He tried to slam it into Kisame again, but...

Samehada gobbled up the blast.

If the sword had eyes, they would have rolled up in delight at the fox-flavored chakra. But instead, Samehada sighed and burped.

Then it bloated to three times its normal size.

"You don't learn, do you, Naruto-kun?" Kisame's smile showed off every single one of his jagged teeth. "My sword, Samehada the Shark Skin, can absorb up to seven tails' worth of chakra. Your attacks won't work against me."

_Seven tails...I have nine tails...Octopops has eight...and Grandpa Roshi has four...together we have...twenty-one tails' worth…but even just Octopops and I are more than enough...seventeen tails..._

Naruto's mind flashed back to when Guy-sensei had made him and Lee participate in a youthful ramen eating contest...something about catching up on the rivalry score with Kakashi-sensei. Bushy Brows had tried, but his limit was ten bowls. After that...well, after that, there was a lot of vomit everywhere and Old Man Teuchi was _not_ happy.

Could Samehada over-eat?

"Octopops!" Naruto beckoned Killer B closer. "I have a plan to beat the shark guy!"

"Yeah, what is it? Don't be shy."

Naruto whispered something into B's ear. B nodded. Gyuuki sighed in exasperation.

Then they both straightened up and faced Kisame with terrifying smiles.

Naruto was Konoha's Number One Show-Off Noisy Unpredictable Ninja. He was also a huge prankster.

B had those traits too. And combined, they had a massive amount of chakra, far more than what Samehada could handle.

Two Oodama Rasengans and three Bijuu Bombs later, Samehada was begging for mercy.

The poor blade's skin was no longer purple, but a sickly shade of green, the same color as vomit.

And speaking of vomit…

Samehada, the Shark Skin, was puking its guts out to its heart's content.

Every time one torrent of crimson red chakra was released from its mouth, another torrent would emerge in its place.

Samehada couldn't _breathe_. It was crying in pain.

Samehada was suffering from a bad case of indigestion.

Samehada, from that day on, was _terrified_ of jinchuuriki.

"Itachi-san, help me!" a scorched, harassed Kisame wailed in despair.

Itachi simply watched impassively from the shadows. Everyone missed it, but he smiled, secretly proud of his renegade brother for having such an interesting friend.

He was a double agent, after all.

"Kisame, let's leave," Itachi said flatly. "We've been outmatched."

Samehada screeched in agreement.

"What? But you haven't even used your Mangekyo – "

"Let's go. We'll try again later."

Itachi whisked the shark man and his sword away.

Roshi was safe.

That made a third runaway jinchuuriki.

* * *

Meanwhile, not far away, the Konoha search party had also crossed into the Land of Earth.

It was nighttime, but day and night made absolutely no difference to Hinata and Neji.

Hinata almost fell off her tree branch in shock, much like Naruto had earlier that day.

"Neji nii-san, do you see that?"

She pointed to the east, twenty kilometers away.

"Yes, Hinata-sama," Neji said. "What – what is that?"

"Huh? Do you see something strange?" Ino asked.

"It's..." Hinata frowned. "How to describe it...some huge craters, a field of lava, and..."

"The remnants of bijuu chakra," Neji elaborated, finally understanding what they were seeing. "Actually, I've seen it before. During my match against Naruto in the Chuunin Exams..."

The search party reached the site within minutes. It was empty, but everyone was still gaping, slack-jawed, at the amount of destruction they saw.

It was definitely Naruto. And there was definitely a fight.

"In those scrolls Shizune-san gave me, it was mentioned that the Yonbi has the incredibly rare power to produce lava," Shikamaru said as they gazed at the lava field. "The jinchuuriki of the Yonbi will therefore have the power of Lava Release."

"And seeing as there's no Naruto-kun or any other jinchuuriki in sight..." said Lee. "That must mean they may have run away together."

"Tsunade-sama said that Naruto will start a war if he keeps doing this..." Ino muttered tiredly. An annoyed tic was bursting at her temple.

An annoyed tic was also bursting at Neji's temple, as a matter of fact.

"Search for him discreetly," Shizune had said. That would be tough, if he kept leaving craters and mass destruction everywhere. He...did not seem to know what discreetness was.

Freaking Naruto.


	5. My Lil Jinchuuriki: Friendship is Magic

A stoic Itachi dragged a sobbing Samehada and a depressed and enraged Kisame back into the Akatsuki's secret lair.

Deidara just stared at the odd sight. "What _happened_ to you, un? Why don't you have the Yonbi jinchuuriki?"

"They...they made Samehada puke! My blade will have indigestion for days! Those two made a mockery out of me!" Kisame snarled, uncharacteristic tears of rage glinting in his piscine eyes.

Samehada screeched.

Pain just glowered at Itachi, silently willing him to explain.

"We were just on the verge of defeating the Yonbi jinchuuriki, Leader," Itachi explained. "But Uzumaki Naruto and Killer B jumped in to defend him."

"Killer B?" asked Konan. "Who is that?"

Samehada wailed in horror on hearing the dreaded jinchuuriki names.

"The Hachibi jinchuuriki," said Itachi, talking over the sword. "He and Naruto-kun...formulated a very interesting plan to defeat Samehada. We were forced to retreat."

"Very well," Pain said impassively. "But be warned that this will not be tolerated again." He turned to two shadowy figures. "Hidan! Kakuzu! Be prepared for – "

Pain was cut off by a swirly masked man materializing out of nowhere.

"Kisame-senpai! Samehada-senpai! Are you two okay? You seem hurt!"

"No, Tobi, wait – ACK!"

* * *

"Thanks for the food!"

Naruto and Killer B began wolfing down the bowls of ochazuke in front of them, trying to outdo each other in their gusto for Roshi's cooking.

Outside, the sky had finally brightened in happiness. The sun had returned.

"Mmmm, tea on rice...it's really nice," B mumbled through a mouthful of the meal.

"Yeah... _gulp, gulp_ , it's not ramen, but it's okay, Grandpa Roshi," Naruto said through a stuffed mouth.

"Don't call me Grandpa, kid," scolded Roshi, although there was no bite in his voice. "And don't talk with your mouth full."

" _Gulp...gulp."_

" _Slurp...slurp."_

The three jinchuuriki were in Roshi's tiny little house in the countryside of Earth. There were almost no people around in the lonely and desolate area. The house was homey and warm, though. Totally made of wood, it had a crackling fireplace and it insulated them from the weather outside.

For Roshi, that was more than enough.

"Oh, that's right, Grandpa," Naruto said, finally polishing off the meal and sighing loudly, not unlike Samehada. "Why are you out here, anyway? Shouldn't you be in Iwa?"

"That's right," said B. "For an Iwa jinchuuriki to be so far away from his home in Stone, don't you feel so alone?"

Roshi turned to Naruto. "Why does he always speak in rhymes?"

Naruto shrugged. "You get used to it after a while." He held up his bowl. "Can I have seconds, Grandpa Roshi?"

"I see you won't stop calling me that." Roshi sighed in resignation, but refilled Naruto's bowl with rice and poured green tea over it anyway.

"Thanks, Gramps!"

"But to tell you the truth..." Roshi turned to face Naruto and B. "I haven't been in Iwa for years. I left ages ago, actually."

"Ages ago?" asked Killer B.

"Yes." Roshi gloomily stared out the window, the sun lighting his red hair gold. "Urgh, I hate that place. I just wanted to have a simple life as a farmer. Peace and quiet, sipping my tea and watching the sunset and all that. Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to be a jinchuuriki. No, no they didn't. They stuck this monkey...this...this _Yonbi_...into me. Well...I didn't ask ask for it, but I came out here to better control the Yonbi. Far away from the village."

" _I have a proper name, you foolish baboon!"_ came a brand-new voice.

" _That you, Son_ _Goku_ _?"_ came Gyuuki's voice.

There was a shocked silence from B and Naruto. A huge red monkey with deadly-looking fangs appeared in their minds.

" _...Gyuuki, is it?"_ said the monkey, Son Goku. _"Gotta say, it's been a while. I think...over six hundred years?"_

" _Yeah. The last time I visited Suirendo."_

" _And do I sense someone else? Kurama, is that you?"_

No response.

"Kurama?" asked Naruto.

" _The Kyuubi's proper name, human,"_ said Son. _"I see that you don't get along with your jinchuuriki either, Kurama."_

Still no response.

" _Why isn't he answering?"_

" _Ignore him. The stupid fox has been playing possum the whole time these past few days."_

" _Still all uppity, Kurama? Do you still have that stupid idea that you're the most powerful bijuu just because you have nine tails?"_ asked Son Goku.

"He's the strongest bijuu?" asked Naruto.

" _No!"_ shouted Son.

" _Yes, I am,"_ said the Kyuubi, finally jumping into the fray. _"The Old Man entrusted_ me _with the greatest power of us all. I have no need for this 'My Little Jinchuuriki: Friendship is Magic' nonsense."_

" _Stop the petty squabbling, both of you_ ," Gyuuki instructed. _"Those Akatsuki are after all of our brethren. I don't know what they mean to do, but they've already gotten Shukaku."_

" _Good riddance,"_ said Kurama, mouth curling into a wicked smile. _"The tanuki never did have a brain._ _Or brawn._ _"_

" _What's gotten into you, Kurama?"_ asked the Hachibi, turning to the Kyuubi in their shared mind space. _"In the old days, you used to be a big softie. And now..."_

" _SHUT UP!"_ the fox snarled, his orange-brown fur bristling in agitation. _"Fine. If you'll both be quiet, at most, I won't be a hindrance. You can have fun with_ Naruto _all you want. Just leave me out of it. I'm going to take a nap."_

With that, the Kyuubi curled up in a ball and closed his eyes.

"The Kyuubi is sad and mad, down deep," B rapped. "That's why he's curling up and going to sleep."

"Back on topic," said Roshi. "I may hate Iwa, but I do have a friend there, Han. He's the other jinchuuriki, and I don't want anything to happen to him because of that shark man."

"Oh yeah, why are there two jinchuuriki in Iwa anyway? I asked Eight-o, but he said he'd explain later."

"The First Hokage gave each village except for Suna a set number of bijuu that he'd captured with Wood Release, so that each village would have an equal amount of power. He thought that would bring about peace." Roshi snorted. "Was he ever wrong about that."

"Equal amount of power? Does that mean Kurama really is the strongest?" asked Naruto.

" _NO!"_ yelled the Yonbi and Hachibi. The Yonbi actually bared his sharp monkey fangs at Naruto. It was scary, especially with his fur, red as Roshi's hair.

" _Finish up your rice, Naruto. Then we can leave this place and rescue Kokuo,"_ Gyuuki said irritably.

And so, after a short nap to recharge their batteries, Naruto, Killer B, and Roshi set off towards Iwa.

Somewhere in Iwa, Han, owner of a very successful hot spring enterprise, sneezed loudly.

* * *

"Excuse me," Ino said politely. "Have you seen this person?"

She held up the photograph of Naruto to the puzzled ramen shop owner.

The plump old lady squinted suspiciously at the picture. "Uh...no, miss. There have been no kabuki actors frequenting my humble Sugoi Ramen."

Ino turned to glare at the offending photo. Damn it. Not that one.

"Damn that stupid Naruto and his stupid ninja registration photo," Ino muttered under her breath as she turned her pockets inside out. "I'm so sorry. I meant to show you this."

She held up the Team Kakashi photo, taken last week. The ramen shop owner's eyes instantly lit up in recognition.

"Oh," she chuckled, waving her hand. "Yes, yes, what a funny boy he was. Ate twenty bowls of ramen in one sitting. I've never made that much money in my whole life from one customer."

"And…? What was his name? Did he have any companions?" If worse came to worst, she would just have to use her Mind Transfer Jutsu. Ino didn't want to use it on civilians, but if it couldn't be helped…

"Hmmm, let's see?" She scratched her chin. "I think his name was...Menma? Wakame? Chashu? Kamoboko? Some kind of ramen topping, I'm sure..."

"Naruto?" Ino pressed.

"That's right! Naruto!" The old lady clapped her hands. "And he was traveling with two funny men. I remember that one was speaking entirely in rhymes."

"Entirely...in rhymes?" Great. Naruto had picked up someone as weird as he was.

"Yes, yes, _his_ name had something to do with...squid?"

"Did Naruto call him Octopops?"

"Yes! Yes! That's right! And then Naruto asked if he could take all of my chopsticks from the chopstick holder. He said it was for ninja training. They paid me a lot of money, so I didn't complain."

Oh for the love of…

Naruto...took _all_ of the chopsticks from a ramen stand. For ninja training. Did he want to stab enemy ninja with chopsticks?

What the hell?

"Did he mention where he might be heading?" asked Ino.

"Iwagakure, I think." The old lady paused. "Even though he had a Konoha hitai-ate and his rhyming friend Octopops had a Kumo hitai-ate. But I think their other friend was from Iwa, so maybe it was a ninja exchange trip!"

Damn it. Ninja exchange trips.

"Thank you so much." Ino gave the old lady a polite bow and had some ramen for her trouble.

It was hard to eat the meal though, because _someone_ had taken all of the chopsticks with him.

Ino's forehead veins began to bulge again as she slowly and torturously ate boiling hot ramen without the aid of any eating utensils.

_Damn you, stupid Naruto._

* * *

Meanwhile, Kakashi and Sakura finally reached Suna as the perfectly round red desert sun began to set.

Baki's eyes widened in surprise.

"Konoha ninja, greetings. Um...didn't you just leave? Why have you come back?"

Sakura's eyes were dancing with anger. Anger at Naruto and his stupid little adventure that made her come here, the second round trip in a week. Like everything was a circus or something.

_Damn you, stupid Naruto._


	6. The Hot Springs Get Even Hotter

For the next few days, Naruto, B, and Roshi winded their way through the terrain of the Land of Earth, the ground under their feet alternating between dry and inhospitable brown and lush and fertile green. They would pause for nothing except to rest, eat, go to the bathroom, and, in the case of Naruto and Killer B, disappear for a few hours with the chopsticks from Sugoi Ramen, for their "ninja training."

But despite all of said interruptions, they soon found themselves nearing the outskirts of Iwagakure, home of hot spring owner and jinchuuriki of the Gobi, Han.

"Listen up, kids," said Roshi. "Unlike me, Han actually grew to enjoy staying in Iwa, where he's welcome as a hero. Unlike me, he actually gets along with his bijuu. And also unlike me, he's not interested in farming. He owns a hot spring inside the village. That's where we'll find him."

"Hot spring?" asked Naruto. "Why a hot spring? Why not a ramen stand?"

"What is it with you and ramen?" Roshi fired back. "Anyway, he owns a hot spring because it's easy to handle with his bijuu's power – Boil Release. It's a kekkei genkai combination of Fire Release and Water Release and Han can create boiling water and steam with it. It's great for hot springs, just like my Lava Release is good for creating fertile farmland."

"But if I had Boil Release, I would use it to, like, cook a thousand bowls of ramen in one shot, ya know," Naruto said, a bit of drool forming at the edges of his mouth at the thought.

"We need to get you a new hobby," Roshi muttered.

"He's right. Lay off the noodles. Naruto, you need a new hobby. Maybe you should learn to doodle," said B.

The three runaway jinchuuriki infiltrated Iwagakure with an ease that would have made any security guard blush with embarrassment, all the while bickering about the need for Naruto to get new hobbies.

* * *

"Wow. Iwa sure is...rocky, ya know," Naruto said as the trio walked through the village square.

"Yes, thank you for stating the obvious, kid. It's not like the village is hidden in rocks or anything," Roshi muttered (he'd taken to muttering a lot whenever Naruto opened his mouth).

Naruto and B didn't even bother to disguise themselves. They were stupid. Naruto, in fact, refused to remove his Konoha hitai-ate, because it seemed as though he thought that everyone needed to _know_ that the future Hokage of Konoha was in town and would rescue Han, jinchuuriki of Kokuo, from the evil designs of the Akatsuki.

A lot of villagers, therefore, were openly gaping at them, especially since Naruto's hair was a striking yellow...very similar to a certain Yellow Flash who had taken down a thousand Iwa ninja years ago.

Naruto mistook their pointing and muttering for something else entirely, and grinned and waved at his audience.

So did B.

Roshi sighed. _Why am I surrounded by fools?_ he asked himself (he, at least, was wearing a traveler's hat to cover his face).

 _"I don't know, they seem pretty funny_ ," said Son Goku.

_"You've been very talkative lately, Yonbi."_

_"Address me by my name, lesser primate_ ," Son snapped before going back to sleep.

The two foolish jinchuuriki and the one smart jinchuuriki finally reached the hot spring located a little ways away from the village square.

They hastily sprinted into the men's section of the bath, attracting a lot of stares as they ran past the men showering and scrubbing each other's backs and walked directly into the hot spring fully-clothed.

They weren't there to have a relaxing bath. They had a jinchuuriki to save.

"Is that even allowed?" one guy murmured, scowling at the blonde-haired boy with a ludicrous smile on his face.

"Maybe they're yakuza. That one guy has tattoos on his face and arm," murmured another, staring at Killer B.

"Maybe that's why they didn't remove their clothes. They might have more embarrassing tattoos that aren't allowed here," murmured a third man, boring holes into the back of Roshi's straw hat.

Maybe tattoos weren't allowed, but it seemed that clothes _were_ allowed, paradoxically, because Han, jinchuuriki of Kokuo, was having a nice leisurely soak, fully decked out in armor. He was currently the only one doing so.

It was a weird hot spring.

"Han!" Roshi called out. "Is that you?"

Han looked up. He was, without a doubt, wearing a get-up incredibly unsuitable for bathing in an onsen.

For starters, he was wearing a red traveler's hat just like Roshi.

Secondly, he was wearing red metal armor that covered every single inch of his skin except for his eyes.

Even the red mask he was wearing seemed to be made of metal.

And he was wearing a keikogi over the armor, to complete the bizarre picture.

To Naruto and B's shock, Han didn't even seem to be wet despite being submerged in water. What kind of freaky bijuu power was that?

"Roshi?" Han asked. "You're here? I thought you hated Iwa. Why are you back?"

"To rescue you!" said Roshi. "Listen, there's a group called Akatsuki and they're after us jinchuuriki – "

"That's exactly right, little bugs!" yelled a new voice.

The roof of the hot spring exploded.

Two black cloaks patterned with red clouds flapped in the wind.

* * *

The Iwa security guards glared suspiciously at the rag-tag band of Konoha ninja standing at their gates, waiting for their travel permits to be processed.

The two villages weren't officially fighting anymore, but that didn't mean that things were all hunky-dory, peaches and cream, sunshine and rainbows...well, you get the message. There was still a lot of hostility between Konoha and Iwa, reflected in the incredibly long time the guards made the Naruto search party wait.

"How long is it going to take?" Tenten asked Neji tiredly.

"Who knows? The guards really seem to hate us," he responded.

"Tenten, Neji, don't get worn out so easily!" Lee said reassuringly. "We're closer to Naruto-kun than ever before, ever since Ino-san found out that he was coming here."

Neji's eyes started twitching at the mention of the Sugoi Ramen incident.

Everyone was so hungry after running around Earth like chickens, thanks to the circus that Naruto had unleashed.

Everyone, therefore, wanted to stop at Sugoi Ramen to grab a bite to eat.

And _everyone_ , with the exception of Hinata (and Lee, to no one's surprise), was livid on discovering that Naruto had taken all of the chopsticks with him, for some godforsaken _ninja training._

Neji had spilled hot broth all over his clothes. Tenten had burned her tongue. Lee took the episode as training, and had ordered ever more bowls of ramen to eat bare-handed.

No wonder Tsunade-sama was binge-drinking when she assigned them this mission. She must have foreseen this. She was clairvoyant.

Neji was still seething even after the security finally processed their documents and let them into the village, turning their attention to a Kumo group right behind them (two people named "Karui" and "Omoi" were making a racket, increasing Neji's irritation further).

The Konoha 11 wearily made their way to the closest inn, planning to at least deposit their belongings and close their eyes a bit before rushing off to find Naruto.

But only thirty minutes later, the search team was stirred by a loud explosion far off in the village.

Tenten poked her head out of her hotel room door. So did everyone else.

"You think…?" she asked.

"Most certainly, it is Naruto," Shino responded grimly.


	7. The Unexpected Uses of Chopsticks

Screams rang throughout the bathhouse. Everyone in the women's and men's sections rushed outside to escape the caved-in roof, many clad only in towels.

"I knew that they were yakuza!" yelled one guy.

A pair of...goons stepped out of the wreckage of the roof. One man with silver hair, armed with a very sharp triple-bladed scythe and the other with a mask covering most of his face.

They were known as the Zombie Combo within the Akatsuki – Hidan and Kakuzu.

"Are you Han, jinchuuriki of the Gobi?" asked Hidan, wearing a wicked, sadistic smile. "You're coming with me, you son of a bitch."

Han stiffened. "My mother is not a bitch," he snapped. "But your mother is a horse and your father is a donkey."

Naruto and B giggled. Roshi groaned.

Hidan's face turned purple with rage. "What was that? _I'LL KILL YOU, YOU –_ "

Kakuzu held out his arm. "Hidan, you imbecile. Haven't you heard the phrase 'look before you leap'?" He gestured towards the four jinchuuriki. "We're two against four. We'll have to be careful. And besides, we've been instructed to bring them in alive."

"Oh." Hidan's shoulders momentarily sagged, then he brightened up again. "That means I can slowly torture them as an offering for Jashin! I'll rip off their arms, and then their ears, and then..."

"Is...is that guy okay?" Naruto asked. "He seems kinda unstable, ya know."

"Of course he's unstable," Roshi said. "More importantly, how are we gonna beat him?"

"Han, give me a fist bump," said B, holding out his clenched hand.

Han blinked. "Huh?"

"Just do it," Roshi grumbled. "It's his greeting, or ritual, or whatever. He made me do it too."

"Um...okay." Han and Killer B bumped fists, and the Gobi and Hachibi saw each other for the first time in centuries.

" _Gyuuki?"_

" _Kokuo?"_

" _It's been so long_ ," said the Five-Tailed Dolphin-Horse. _"I've missed all of you guys."_

" _Ha ha. So what have you been up to, Kokuo?"_ asked Gyuuki. _"Me, I've been in Kumo, putting up with this idiot's"_ – he nodded at B – _"rap."_

" _Oh, well, Han here isn't an idiot, and our hot spring's doing really well..."_

" _Don't leave me out of your conversation,"_ said Son Goku.

" _Wow, Son, your fangs have gotten really big – "_

"Let's talk later," Han said. "We have to defeat these two clowns first."

" _Right,"_ said Kokuo.

"Naruto and I, we have a plan," Killer B said. "We know how to make these Akatsuki scram."

"Oh yeah, unbelievers?" Hidan snarled, swinging his scythe around like an axe murderer. "I'll gut you and give your limbs as an offering to Jashin."

"Who's Jashin?" asked Naruto.

"The god of my religion. He demands nothing less than absolute death and destruction." Yeah, he was definitely unstable, if his evil laugh was anything to go by.

"Whoa, you need to find a new god to worship," Naruto muttered.

"Anyway, Naruto, remember our training," B said.

Right. The chopstick training.

" _B, don't tell me you're..."_

" _That's right, Eight-o, Naruto's chakra is wind, very good for piercing and stabbing things."_

Naruto took out all of the chopsticks from Sugoi Ramen, which he'd carefully stored into a storage scroll. He also took out his conventional kunai.

He concentrated hard, imagining his wind chakra grinding and sharpening together, and flowing through the chopsticks and kunai.

It worked.

Naruto threw the wind chakra-infused chopsticks at Hidan, who was too busy laughing his evil laugh, and didn't dodge. He screamed in pain as they passed clean through his neck and through the wall. Then he picked up the kunai and did the same, getting another shot at his torso. Hidan screamed some more, then fixed Naruto with a _look_. A very disturbing look.

"How'd ya like that, weirdo?" Naruto yelled. "Those are the deadly weapons of Sugoi Ramen!"

"You...you little – " Hidan raised his scythe and staggered towards Naruto, only to fall into the bath.

That...that was another problem for Hidan. This was, without a doubt, the worst kind of battlefield he could have been dealt. There was no solid ground on which to draw the circle symbol for his ritual.

There was also the pesky fact that Han was covered head to toe in armor, and couldn't easily be scratched, so drawing a blood sample from him would be a big problem. Hidan's blood ritual inflicting sympathetic damage to his enemy would be of no use.

Kakuzu seemed to have realized this, and charged towards Naruto, intending to take him out. But unfortunately for him, Killer B was the one who had taught Naruto that nifty little trick, and could do it too...except with his swords.

That was how Kakuzu found himself being impaled in two hearts by B's lightning chakra-infused swords. He, too, was so fixated on the annoying blonde jinchuuriki that he forgot to duck.

B had many, many swords, far more than the number of Kakuzu's hearts.

Two against four super powerful jinchuuriki was difficult even for these deadly S-rank missing-nin.

Then Han had to go and heat up the hot water to an astronomically high temperature, and Hidan screamed once more in pain, rage, and ecstasy (he was a masochist, after all).

" _Yonbi, a little help? I'm the only one sitting around not doing anything,"_ Roshi requested.

" _If you can ask for my help, why can't you remember my name?_ _Is it so difficult to say?"_

" _I...I do know your name,"_ Roshi muttered uncomfortably.

" _Okay, then say it. Do that, and I'll help you."_

Roshi took a deep breath. In all the years he'd been out in the countryside, trying to make peace with the beast stuffed into his body against his will, he could never bring himself to say its name. But there was a first time for everything, and Roshi decided to shelve his stubbornness once and for all.

" _Son Goku, King of the Sage Monkeys, Handsome Monkey King, Great Sage Equalling Heaven. Help me save my friends."_

There was dead silence for a while.

" _Just Son would have been fine."_

Then the water turned molten with lava, except for the area around Roshi's friends.

It was extremely hot lava. It was extremely hot water. And Hidan and Kakuzu were in extremely hot pain.

It was such a good thing for them that they'd managed to escape before the lava-water mixture rose to their knees. They were immortal, but getting incinerated by lava-water was tough, even for immortals.

The foolish jinchuuriki had managed to drive another group of rogue ninja to murderous rage.

* * *

The Naruto search team and the Killer B search team both arrived at the bombed-out hot spring at the same time.

The terrified patrons were talking gibberish at the Iwa ninja who had arrived at the scene, reporting directly to the Tsuchikage.

"There were these four yakuza – "

"They were fighting these other two yakuza – "

"The blonde teenage yakuza threw his chopsticks at this other yakuza and stabbed him in the neck – "

"Yakuza? Seriously?" Kiba muttered to his teammates.

"Naruto-kun sure...made a splash," Hinata said. She looked at the remains of Han's poor hot spring and tried not to laugh.

It seemed that she was the only one who actually thought that Naruto's antics were kind of cool and funny.

Not many would go missing-nin while leaving a note asking people not to worry, along with a smiley face and instructions to water his plants.

Hinata...was having fun.


	8. International Breaking News

Sakura woke up with a stretch of her arms and a yawn. She had a good long sleep, which she needed because anything involving Naruto was bound to be a headache. Such as requesting the Kazekage for help in locating the fool.

She looked out of the window of her guest room. The sun was an intense red here in Suna, very unlike the cheery yellow of the Konoha sun. She might have enjoyed comparing and contrasting the two villages on another day, a day in which she was free to come here as a tourist or something, but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

She waited impatiently for Kakashi-sensei, who, for once, wasn't that late. Maybe it was because he couldn't ghost the Kazekage on an official mission for Tsunade-sama, or maybe because there were no roads for him to get lost on here. Whatever the reason, he was on time.

But some old habits really did die hard, and he read Icha Icha Tactics for the third time as they walked to the Kazekage's office.

"Sensei, don't you get tired of reading the same thing over and over again?" she asked.

"Well," Kakashi-sensei said with a cheery eye-smile. "Does Naruto ever get tired of eating ramen?"

She sighed. "You have a point. I hope he isn't bothering some poor ramen shop owner in some other country by taking all of the chopsticks or something."

"Now, now, don't say things like that or they'll become true, Sakura."

Little did they know how right they were.

Gaara stood up from his desk with a smile of greeting when they reached his office. He looked very distinguished indeed in the official station of the Kazekage of Sunagakure.

"Good morning, Haruno Sakura, Hatake Kakashi. I would say it's been a while, but it hasn't." He smiled slightly at his silly joke.

"It's a pleasure to see you again for the second time in two weeks, Gaara-kun," Kakashi-sensei said cheerfully. "We Konoha ninja would love to come here more often, but in much better circumstances. Unfortunately, right now..."

"You mean to say that there's an emergency in Konoha right now?" Gaara frowned. "I owe Naruto...and Konoha...a great debt. I would be happy to offer any assistance you wish."

Sakura shifted uncomfortably. How would they even begin to explain the insanity that Naruto had unleashed? Words couldn't do the chaos justice.

Evidently, Kakashi-sensei was thinking along the same lines. "Well, I don't know if _emergency_ is the right word, but..."

Sakura took the infamous note out of her pocket. "Here, it's best if you read Naruto's explanation yourself."

Gaara took the paper and quickly scanned over it. He didn't have eyebrows, but if he did, they would have risen further and further into his hairline as he read line after line of the note.

"Naruto...ran away with a jinchuuriki named Octopops? Is that his real name, or is it a pseudonym?" asked Gaara.

"Most likely a stupid nickname that Naruto came up with. That just makes it harder to figure out the mystery man's real identity," Sakura said.

Gaara's eyes became downcast. Huh? Why was he downcast? Sakura would have thought him the type to express quiet amusement or exasperation upon hearing about Naruto's antics.

"Naruto ran away and he didn't invite me?" he muttered. A glimmer of jealousy shone in his eyes.

Whoa, whoa, what?

Gaara was…

"Kazekage-sama!" yelled a Suna shinobi, running into the room. He panted for breath, clutching a rolled-up paper in his sweaty palm.

"What is it?" asked Gaara.

"It's a newspaper from Iwagakure. One of our shinobi stationed nearby sent it to us by hawk. You need to see this."

He gingerly placed the newspaper on the Kazekage's desk.

 **MASSIVE EXPLOSION IN HOT SPRING; ZERO INJURIES, SIX ABSCONDING** , the front page headline announced.

_Iwa–Two people, who have been identified as ninja of Konoha and Kumo (photographs published below), participated in a fight in an onsen owned by (name redacted), erstwhile Third Ninja War veteran and local celebrity, along with (name redacted), who had obtained permission from the Tsuchikage to settle in the countryside several decades ago._

_The four were reported to be fighting as a team against two unknown assailants who have been identified as members of the criminal organization Akatsuki, known for their distinctive black cloaks with red cloud designs. The aims of Akatsuki are currently unknown, although it has been reported that they have a presence in most countries of the world. The motivations of the two assailants are unknown._

_In the scuffle that broke out, the Konoha ninja allegedly impaled one Akatsuki member with a pair of chopsticks, and local residents have since given him the appellation "Chopsticks Master of Konoha."_

_No injuries were reported, although the building was almost completely destroyed and confused patrons mistakenly identified the four people in question as yakuza. All six involved in the fight have since disappeared; their whereabouts are currently unknown._

_It is unknown if the Konoha and Kumo ninja were authorized to enter the village; investigation is pending. The Tsuchikage has sent inquiries to the Hokage and Raikage regarding their respective charges._

And there was Naruto, Konoha hitai-ate standing out as brightly as his blonde hair and orange jacket, grinning up at the newspaper readers without a care in the world, giving everyone a thumbs-up to boot.

And the photograph next to him portrayed a middle-aged man, also blonde like Naruto (but with a mustache and beard, quite unlike Naruto). He too was grinning in a very tacky manner, Kumo hitai-ate gleaming cheerfully at the world. A horn-shaped tattoo adorned his cheek.

Gaara, Sakura, and Kakashi stared at the newspaper for a long time.

"I suppose that this must be Naruto's new friend, Octopops," Kakashi finally said. "I take it that his jinchuuriki rescue mission is quite successful?"

"He even attacked the Akatsuki with chopsticks," Sakura muttered. "Tsunade-shishou must be...postal. We need to get back soon, sensei. Who knows what might have happened over there."

"I'll be happy to send Suna ninja to search for Naruto," Gaara offered kindly. "I hope he hasn't gotten hurt from fighting with the Akatsuki."

"Thank you very much, Gaara-kun," said Kakashi-sensei. "I'm sure Tsunade-sama will appreciate it."

The fatigued members of Team 7 made haste to rush to Konoha.

* * *

Damn it.

Freaking damn it.

This was getting to be deja vu for poor Tsunade.

It wasn't even ten in the morning yet, and Naruto was apparently known in Iwagakure as the "Chopsticks Master of Konoha."

On top of a nasty letter that she had received from Onoki, the Sandaime Tsuchikage, assuring her that he would send his own ninja to track down the band of foolish jinchuuriki, she had to deal with certain...domestic problems as well.

More specifically, Sarutobi-sensei's irritating ex-friend, war hawk, and all around awful guy, Shimura Danzo.

She used to have no idea how Sarutobi-sensei and Danzo had ever been friends, but then she was reminded of her old friendship with Orochimaru, so there was that.

"Need I remind you, Danzo, that _I_ am the Hokage, not you," she snapped. "You have absolutely no authority to order any of your subordinates on any international search, and that's final."

Danzo respectfully inclined his head at her, somehow throwing as much contempt as he could into the gesture. "But of course, Tsunade-hime," he murmured, casting a baleful look at her with his one visible eye. "But I merely think that my young protege would be of great use in assisting the team that you've sent out."

Most likely a mole, planted by Danzo for whatever nefarious subterfuge he'd planned. But she couldn't directly accuse him of that; he was too good at covering up his tracks.

"Danzo, the search party I have sent out already has nine members, and one team specializes specifically in tracking. There is no need to send anyone else."

"That is true," he agreed. "But Team Kakashi is two members short. I would be glad to assign one of my proteges to fill up the gaps...at least until Uzumaki Naruto returns."

Damn it. Now he wanted to plant a spy directly into Naruto's team, and basic etiquette dictated that Tsunade would be unable to refuse, as she had no direct proof that he was up to anything.

In that case…

"Very well," she said. "To fill up the second gap, I'll assign one of my own Anbu to Team Kakashi as well."

After Danzo left, Tsunade went back to sake bottle three. A worried Shizune discreetly threw sake bottle four out of the window.

Stupid Naruto.

* * *

A warm, crackling campfire.

Yummy fish caught from a nearby stream (ramen for Naruto, though).

Excitable chatter, laughing, and joking.

It was the first-ever-in-history jinchuuriki camping trip.

"OK, let's go," Killer B rapped. "One at a time. Tell everyone your names, your likes, your hates, your favorite sights, your favorite cakes – "

"Why does he speak only in rap?" asked Han. "I mean, _favorite cakes_? He came up with that just because it sounds like _hates_."

Roshi shook his head in resignation. "Leave it, Han, it takes all kinds of people for the world to go around."

"I'll go first," Naruto said. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I love ramen, especially Ichiraku Ramen, my favorite place in the whole world. But Sugoi Ramen back in Reihoku Town is pretty cool. My favorite thing to do in my free time is to try out different flavors of ramen. I think that Ichiraku's cup ramen is better than all those other cup ramen in the world. I have a special pair of chopsticks that I use just for my favorite ramen. When I finish ninja training for the day, I always have a bowl of – "

"Why are you so obsessed with ramen?" asked Han. "Can't you talk about anything else?"

"Leave it, Han, it takes all kinds of people for the world to go around."

Naruto pouted at Roshi and Han. "And my dream is to become Hokage! The most fabulous Hokage of all time." He slurped at his ramen. "But before I do that, I have three goals. First, get my friend Sasuke back from Orochimaru. Second, rescue all of the jinchuuriki from the Akatsuki. And third, win Ichiraku's annual eating contest and get all-you-can eat ramen for a month..."

" _Speaking of that, who are we gonna rescue next?"_ asked Son Goku, cutting Naruto's introduction short.

" _The nearest one I can sense is Chomei,"_ Kokuo said.

" _To Chomei we go, then,"_ said Gyuuki.

A snort came from within Naruto's stomach. Everyone turned around to stare.

" _I see that you and all your jinchuuriki are chummy now,"_ the Kyuubi sneered. _"Even you, Yonbi – "_

" _Don't call me that,"_ the monkey snapped.

" _Fine, Foolish Monkey King, or whatever it is. You're all in over your heads and – "_

" _What happened to you, Kurama?"_ asked Kokuo in surprise. _"When we were kids – "_

" _Leave it, Kokuo,"_ Gyuuki muttered. _"He's been antisocial for a while. We'll just have to do it without him."_

Kokuo looked unhappy about it, but she let the matter drop.

"Um, you guys," B said, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable. Even he didn't know what to make of the bijuu sibling squabble. "Let's strategize. Eyes on the prize. Everything, that's what it'll decide."

"Yeah," said Han. "So where is Chomei anyway?"

Takigakure wouldn't know what hit them.


	9. A Lot of People Make a Lot of Friends

Back in the Akatsuki lair, Hidan and Kakuzu had found kindred spirits in Kisame and Samehada.

"It _hurt_!" Hidan yelled. "But it felt _so good_. I hate that son of a bitch, Naruto, so much. And that other son of a bitch, Han. _And_ the other one – "

Samehada shrieked.

"Samehada says that it was hurting badly too, and can understand your pain. Samehada also hates the accursed jinchuuriki," Kisame translated. "And that together, we can gut those those jinchuuriki like fish – "

"What a stupid pun, un," Deidara muttered. "Anyway, I wanna kill that Naruto guy too. He punched me in the face a few weeks ago, un."

"Enough," snapped Pain. "This is the second time that you fools have failed to capture your assigned jinchuuriki. What is your excuse?"

"They ganged up on us," Kakuzu explained. "If it was two against one, we could have easily finished them off. But they outnumbered us and it was impossible to win."

"You mean to say that the jinchuuriki are banding together to thwart our plans?" Pain asked.

To everyone's surprise, it was the usually silent and stoic Itachi who spoke up.

"Yes, that was what the Hachibi jinchuuriki, Killer B, informed us of," Itachi said.

Pain looked thoughtful, as much as it was possible for a reanimated corpse to look thoughtful, anyway.

"Interesting." He clasped his hands together. "Perhaps..."

He snapped his fingers, gathering everyone's attention.

"Your jinchuuriki hunting duties are temporarily suspended. However, you will continue to monitor them. We will watch...and wait for the right time."

* * *

Back in Iwa, the two search parties had finally crossed paths, and if there was ever such cacophony and mayhem in the village before, no one, not even the oldest villagers, had witnessed it.

A brawl was on the verge of breaking out on the remains of Han's destroyed hot spring.

"I'm telling you, we're looking for our annoying ramen-obsessed classmate and his new jinchuuriki friend Octopops," Ino shouted, unintentionally waving Naruto's kabuki actor ninja registration photo at Karui.

"And _we're_ looking for our missing master, Killer B-sama, whose name is _not_ Octopops!" Karui yelled back. "He's a very distinguished Third Ninja War veteran and he's traveling with some guy called the Chopsticks Master of Konoha!"

Meanwhile, the gears were finally clicking into place for Shino.

"Shikamaru," he asked in a low voice. "I would like to know the attributes of the Hachibi. Why? Because I have an inkling of the true identity of Naruto's new jinchuuriki friend, Octopops."

"You too, huh?" Shikamaru asked. "Well, I'd suspected too, but I didn't want to say anything in case I turned out to be wrong and misled everyone. It would be troublesome if that happened. The Hachibi is a hybrid bijuu, unlike the Kyuubi. It has the head and body of an ox, but its 'tails,' so to speak, are tentacles. Octopus tentacles."

"I see," Shino said. "And I presume that the Hachibi jinchuuriki would also have the ability to sprout octopus tentacles, earning him the nickname 'Octopops.'"

C and Darui were listening in on this whispered conversation, and for them, too, the gears finally clicked into place.

They were both searching for the same people. Did that make them...friends? Friends in suffering at least, if the disgruntled expressions of the Konoha search team were anything to go by. C and Darui could understand _exactly_ what they were feeling.

Babysitting Karui and Omoi for the past few days was not fun. On top of that, running around Earth from pillar to post and getting info on B-san and his mysterious blonde ramen-loving friend from some ramen shop owner, of all people...this was not what they'd signed up for when they'd become the Raikage's bodyguards.

"Karui," Omoi said. "Don't make these Konoha guys angry. What if you get into a fist-fight with Yamanaka-san, and then her friend, that bored-looking guy over there, comes in to help, and then that fat guy also comes in to help, and you'll be outnumbered?"

Chouji's face was slowly turning beet-red on being called "fat," and he was just about to violently voice his displeasure, when, to his surprise, Karui beat him to the punch.

"Give me a break, Omoi!" she yelled. "That guy isn't fat. He's just big-boned!"

Nine jaws dropped in unison.

And for Chouji, it was love at first sight.

* * *

Ever since she was a young girl, it had been Fuu's dream to make a hundred friends. It always annoyed the villagers of her hometown, Takigakure, when she would sprint up to them and yell, _"Hi, do you want to be my hundredth friend?"_

The village leader Shibuki always told her that if she kept doing that, sooner or later, she would give someone a heart attack, and then he would be in massive trouble as Fuu was his responsibility.

She didn't understand why, though. After all, she would loudly announce her presence right before running up to people. They had plenty of warning beforehand!

She always counted her bijuu, Lucky Seven Chomei, as her first friend, because they'd been together since she was a baby. Lucky Seven Chomei always told her that as a jinchuuriki, she was kinda like Takigakure's lucky charm.

Shibuki...Shibuki was an interesting village leader. He never called Fuu a super weapon or an unstable monster that Taki had no choice but to use (as a living bomb against other villages, that is), or whatever went on in those other hidden ninja villages.

No, he was of the belief that Chomei was a lucky charm, a guardian deity, perhaps, bestowed upon their tiny village for their happiness and prosperity.

As a result, Fuu was not a typical jinchuuriki, and that was saying something, as there were only nine of them at any given time.

Fuu was happy. That was the difference between herself and a lot of jinchuuriki. Oh sure, quite a few, such as Naruto, Gaara, Yugito, B, and Han, did eventually win their villagers' love and respect. But that was _after_ the villagers went beyond seeing them as unstable monsters.

Fuu never had to go through that phase of a typical jinchuuriki life. Most Taki villagers thought of her as either mildly irritating, or as the amazing lucky charm of the village.

But it was _hard_ making new friends when she was stuck in the same old village day in and day out. How was she supposed to reach her hundred friend goal if she wasn't allowed to leave the village (Shibuki kept insisting that the world outside was dangerous for people like her, whatever that meant)?

Fuu was happy, unlike the typical jinchuuriki, but Fuu was also _bored_ , also unlike the typical jinchuuriki.

Was she supposed to wait for new friends to drop out of the sky or whatever?

So imagine her surprise when four new friends just dropped out of the sky one day.

A very cute blonde boy with a very bright happy smile – Naruto – told her that they needed her on their jinchuuriki rescue team, to save the other jinchuuriki from some evil group called Akatsuki, or something.

Fuu was barely listening. There was just one major thing she got from the conversation: she could finally make a hundred friends!

So it was with no trouble at all that she took off with Naruto (and those other three boring old people friends), after writing a note to Shibuki, explaining that she would be back soon (Naruto kindly helped her write it).

She had no idea why there was a lot of screaming, yelling, shouting, and general chaos in the village square as she ran away with her new friends.

She wrote a note to Shibuki saying she'd be fine! What were they fussed about?

Fuu had a hundred friends to make.

* * *

An exhausted Kakashi and Sakura limped their way into the Hokage Tower.

"Bath...then sleep," Sakura muttered. Kakashi-sensei mumbled in agreement, then added something about feeding his ninken. Whatever.

Tsunade was there at her desk, and she looked pretty exhausted too. Maybe it was the paperwork, or maybe it was the two Anbu standing at attention.

"Godaime."

"Tsunade-shishou."

"Kakashi, Sakura." Tsunade's fingers were twitching. "As you both know, your team is two members short. I've given it some thought, and these two Anbu will be Naruto and Sasuke's replacements, at least until they come back."

Kakashi and Sakura blinked in surprise.

Kakashi, because one of the Anbu was none other than his good friend and partner in the Black Ops, Tenzo the Wood Release user.

Sakura, because the dark-haired, extremely pale teenage Anbu was smiling a very fake smile at her.

"Hello, Ugly," he said politely.

Sakura snapped.


	10. Team Problems

A warm, crackling campfire.

Yummy fish caught from a nearby stream (ramen for Naruto, though).

Excitable chatter, laughing, and joking.

It was the _second_ -ever-in-history jinchuuriki camping trip.

And Fuu was more than willing to participate in the jinchuuriki introduction thing that B had suggested.

"My name is Fuu, su. I'm sixteen years old, su. I'm from Takigakure and I love bugs like my first friend Lucky Seven, the Seven-Tailed Kabutomushi, su. I love fugu and I hate natto. My dream is to make a hundred friends and become just like my village's Takikage, Shibuki, su."

" _Fuu,"_ said Chomei. _"There is no such thing as the Takikage. Shibuki is just the village leader."_

"Well, _I'm_ calling him the Takikage. He's just as cool and awesome as all the other Kage, su!" Fuu yelled, munching on her fried fish.

"Next!" yelled B. He stared pointedly at Roshi, most likely because he'd skipped out of the introduction last time.

Roshi sighed a deep, heavy sigh, as though he'd been asked to lift some mountains or go find the Dragon Balls. "My name is Roshi. I like farming, peace, and quiet. I dislike annoying people who talk too much. The end."

"Wow, that was short," Naruto remarked. "You didn't mention any of your favorite foods, ya know."

"Next!" Roshi yelled.

Next up was Han.

"My name is Han," said the fully-armored man. "I love marketing my skills so that I can make money. For example, my hot spring back in Iwa is based on my Boil Release – "

"Oh yeah," Naruto butted in. "Why were you bathing fully-armored, Grandpa Han?"

Han looked rather hurt. "Grandpa? I'm only thirty-eight," he said.

Naruto seemed to have realized his mistake, because he rushed in to say, "Oh, no, no, you got the wrong idea, Grand – I mean, Uncle Han. I was just trying to be friendly."

Han calmed down slightly, but Roshi did not. "Why is _he_ Uncle, but _I'm_ Grandpa?" he snapped at Naruto. "I'm not even fifty!"

"Eh, you just give off grumpy old man vibes, Grandpa Roshi," Naruto said, shrugging. Roshi smoldered so much, you could almost see lava coming out of his ears. Luckily, Han came to the rescue.

"And to answer your question, I wasn't bathing fully-armored. I was powering up the hot spring."

"Wait just a moment, I haven't finished with Naruto – "

"Next!" Killer B yelled.

"OK!" Naruto shouted. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I love ramen, especially Ichiraku Ramen, my favorite place in the whole world. But Sugoi Ramen back in Reihoku Town is pretty cool. My favorite thing to do in my free time is to try out different flavors of ramen. I think that Ichiraku's cup ramen is better than all those other cup ramen in the world. I have a special pair of chopsticks that I use just for my favorite ramen – "

"Next!" B called out.

"But I'm not done with my introduction, ya know!"

"Naruto, that was the exact same thing you said during the last camping trip, word for word," Han pointed out.

"Naruto, let's share some ramen when we go to Konoha, su!" Fuu declared. "I think fugu ramen would taste really good. I'll even ask our Takikage – "

" _Fuu, for the last time, there's no such thing – "_

"All right, it's time for my awesome rhymes!" Killer B grinned. "My name's Killer B, I'm the Hachibi jinchuuriki, the world's greatest rap master to be – "

Just then, a feral voice bellowed, "B!"

A glint of blue shone in the dense green-black nighttime forest.

* * *

"This is so dull," Darui said.

"This is so troublesome," Shikamaru agreed.

Chouji and Karui weren't the only unlikely duo in the bunch.

"It's best if we split up so that we can cover more ground." Darui sighed. "Bad enough that we had to give info to Iwa, so it's best if we travel alone so that no one else can find out about our mission."

"It's troublesome, but I agree." He gave Darui a paper. "This here contains all relevant info about Naruto that you need to track him. There's nothing else in here that's incriminating, though."

"Likewise." Darui handed Shikamaru a very similar paper. "Information regarding identifying characteristics of B-san. It's dull that we're from enemy villages, but – "

"It's troublesome, but we'll have to cooperate this time around."

* * *

"No, Sakura, no!" Kakashi yelled, holding back his pink-haired medic ninja. "You can't seriously injure Sai, he's a teammate now!"

"Just – one – punch – Kakashi-sensei – just – one – shannaro," Sakura grunted, trying her best to get a swing at Sai.

The milky-skinned Anbu continued to smile an artificially placid smile. "Why are you so upset?" He held up a little black book in his ink-stained hands. "It says here that to make new friends, you should give them a cute nickname."

Tenzo – now given the code name Yamato – sighed. "Sai." Yamato gently wrested the book from his grip. "I know that Danzo's...training...was very harsh. That's why we're here – to deprogram you."

"Deprogram?" Sai repeated.

"His methods to produce the perfect shinobi run contrary to the Will of Fire that keeps Konoha thriving," Kakashi explained. "So I can understand that you must feel like a fish out of water here. However...please refrain from calling people you've just met 'Ugly.' They won't appreciate it."

Sai just gave them a blank smile.

Yamato and Kakashi exchanged weary looks. He didn't get it. They were in this for the long haul.

"Okay. Just..." Kakashi held up his hands. "Never mind. Just don't call Sakura that anymore, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good," Kakashi said. He held up one of Naruto's potted plants. "Now for some teamwork-building exercises. Together, we will all water our teammate Naruto's plants. Yamato will use his Wood Release to make them grow even more, maybe to gigantic proportions." He gave Yamato an eye-smile.

"Senpai, what the hell?"

"All right," Sai said with his least fake smile yet. "Slowpoke-sensei."

Kakashi's smile became strained underneath his mask.

They needed to _deprogram_ Sai.


	11. When an Angry Cat Attacks

"B!" roared that strange feral voice again.

Everyone stopped talking, turning to stare at the source of the commotion. It was clear that B knew who it was, and that he was _frightened._

Beads of sweat trickled down his face, but he bravely tried to smile.

"No need to worry," he told his fellow foolish jinchuuriki. "It's just my...friend."

"Octopops, you aren't rapping. Why aren't you rapping?" Naruto asked. "What's going on? Is there some kind of emergency?"

"YOU CAN BET THERE IS!"

Then a giant flaming blue cat burst onto the scene and scratched B right across the face.

Naruto screamed. Fuu screamed. Han screamed. Even _Roshi_ screamed.

Could you blame them, though? Normal cats are very cute. Giant flaming blue cats are...very terrifying.

Then the cat turned into a human lady. Specifically, a human ninja lady wearing a Kumo standard shinobi uniform, just like B, along with a dangerous scowl. Her blonde hair was standing on end like a cat's fur during a fight. Even her nails were sharp, just like a cat's claws.

"I can't believe you, B!" snarled Nii Yugito, jinchuuriki of the Nibi. "You went on a jinchuuriki rescue mission without inviting me? _Another jinchuuriki?_ "

"Yugito, I beg your pardon, please," B said sheepishly, rubbing the angry red marks on his face. "I didn't mean to leave you out, honestly, that's not Killer B!"

Yugito seemed to have calmed down after venting her anger in a frighteningly unhinged way. She turned towards the other quaking, trembling jinchuuriki. Han was hiding behind Roshi – a ridiculous sight, as Han was easily the tallest jinchuuriki of the bunch. Meanwhile, Naruto and Fuu were holding onto each other for dear life.

"Pleased to meet you," the scary cat lady said with a smile. "I'm Nii Yugito, jinchuuriki of the Nibi, Matatabi. Please don't make any puns about my name, or I will _scratch you_."

"Y-yes, ma'am," Naruto squeaked, not releasing his death grip on Fuu for a moment. "Fuu nee-chan, please protect me from her."

Fuu frowned as Naruto called her "nee-chan." Then Killer B tried to break the ice.

"So...Yugito, long time no see. How are things holding up in the village without me?"

"The Raikage had a meltdown and he sent C, Darui, Karui, and Omoi after you," Yugito said, plonking herself down on a log. "It was tough for me to sneak past security, but I managed it last week, when those morons X and Y were on duty. Bet he's having another meltdown."

She sighed heavily. "Took no time at all in tracking you down, what with the massive bijuu chakra signatures you five are emitting. I'm surprised that you haven't been caught yet." She took a skewered fish hanging in front of the campfire. "Mind if I take this? I'm starving."

Naruto nodded feverishly, trying desperately not to provoke her. Yugito then began gnawing at the fish in a very cat-like fashion.

"Oh, by the way – we're all – _chomp, chomp_ – under an international manhunt now – _chomp, chomp_."

She shrugged off her bag and pushed it towards Roshi, who opened it and pulled out a collection of newspapers and a bingo book.

" _MASSIVE EXPLOSION IN HOT SPRING; ZERO INJURIES, SIX ABSCONDING,"_ he read out. _"WANTED IN TAKIGAKURE: CHOPSTICKS MASTER OF KONOHA AND THREE ACCOMPLICES."_

Naruto blushed in pleasure at his new title.

"Oh, and here," Roshi continued, reading from the bingo book. "Wanted in Iwa, Kumo, and Taki for...that's a lot of zeroes. Naruto, B, you two need to be more discreet, do you understand that? You're the only ones listed with your photos. It's a good thing that no one will be able to find you with this thing, though, Naruto."

He held up the bingo book. It was Naruto's ninja registration photo from when he was twelve. The one where he was pretending to be a kabuki actor.

"Why is he wanted, su?" Fuu asked. "We left a note and everything. We asked them not to worry, su!"

"Yeah!" Naruto agreed. "I left a note back when we left Konoha too. I hope that Kakashi-sensei is watering my plants, and that baa-chan isn't mad at me..."

The adults in the group, excluding B, stared at Naruto and Fuu incredulously.

What was wrong with teenagers these days? Did someone beat jinchuuriki kids on the head too often and give them brain damage?

"Fuu...Naruto..." Han said. "You two ran away from the village. Which is illegal. That's why they're looking for you."

"But we left _notes_ , ya know. They explained everything."

"Really?" Roshi said. "Then you kids can go ahead and explain exactly what you wrote in those notes."

Naruto cleared his throat and recited from memory:

" _Yo, everyone! I know this is kinda sudden and all, but I need to leave the village for a few.._. _months. Some random jinchuuriki came here and we decided that we need to save everyone else so that no one ends up like Gaara! But don't worry about us, Octopops is a really cool guy and he isn't a danger to the village or anything!_

_To Kakashi-sensei: Please water my plants while I'm gone._

_To Ichiraku: IOU three thousand ryo. I'll pay you when I'm back._

_To Sakura-chan: Please tell baa-chan not to get mad._

_Naruto :)"_

Yugito was staring at Naruto in shock. Then Fuu opened her mouth and added to the fire:

" _I'm leaving on a trip to realize my dream of making a hundred friends! Right now I'm somewhere in the eighties range. I'll be back soon when I've made a hundred! Tell Shibuki not to worry. Even though the world is dangerous for people like me, I have a lot of friends who will help me!_

_The village's lucky charm, Fuu :)"_

Yugito then stared at Fuu in shock. "What is wrong with you kids? That's not how you write notes," she finally said.

"Forget about it," Roshi said. "These kids are just weirdos."

"Who are you calling weird?"

"Yeah, su!"

"More importantly, we have two more jinchuuriki to rescue," Han said. "And if my memory serves me right, they're in..."

Kirigakure. The Bloody Mist Village.

* * *

"Well?" asked Pain. "What are those jinchuuriki up to?"

"The Nibi, Yonbi, Gobi, Nanabi, Hachibi, and Kyuubi jinchuuriki are heading towards Kiri, un," said Deidara. "I bet they're trying to rescue the last two jinchuuriki."

"Very well. This saves us the trouble of looking for the Rokubi. These jinchuuriki are doing our work for us. How convenient. And as for the Sanbi...well, we already have the Yondaime Mizukage under our control. Those fools just need to complete the set."


	12. Journey to the Hidden Mist

_Slurp, slurp, slurp._

"Naruto, stop that," Yugito scolded, snatching the cup noodles out of Naruto's hands. "Do you _want_ to get caught?"

"How can we get caught?" Naruto gestured to the thick mist hanging over the sky and drenching the atmosphere in white. "Look at all this. No one can track us with all of this mist, ya know."

"There are more ways to track someone than just with sight, kid," Roshi said, staring out into the gloom.

Han was propelling the boat from island to island. Unlike all of the other countries they'd been to for their jinchuuriki rescue trip, the Land of Water was not a single contiguous landmass. This affected their searching abilities rather significantly, because they had to travel by boat half of the time.

"Who are the jinchuuriki of the Land of Water, su?" asked Fuu.

"I don't know who the Rokubi jinchuuriki is, but the Sanbi jinchuuriki is none other than the Yondaime Mizukage, Karatachi Yagura," Roshi said grimly. "Rumor has it that he's...not a very nice person."

"What do you mean by that, su?"

"You know that Kiri is also called the Village of the Bloody Mist, right?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah!" Naruto said. "I met two guys from Kiri actually, Momochi Zabuza and his apprentice Haku, ya know."

Killer B's jaw dropped. "You met the Mist's cold-blooded killer? What a shock, that must have been a real thriller."

"We met on my team's first mission outside Konoha. We had to protect Old Man Tazuna, a bridge-builder from the Land of Waves, and Zabuza and Haku were hired by a tycoon named Gato to assassinate him."

"Let me guess," Roshi said. "You somehow became friends with the pair and got them to kill their employer?"

"Yeah, how'd ya know, Grandpa Roshi?" Naruto grinned.

Roshi just sighed heavily. He muttered something under his breath that sounded like, _"Should've known that you'd befriend murderous missing-nin..."_

"Karatachi Yagura was the one reigning over Kirigakure during the Bloody Mist Era," Yugito explained. "Suffice to say that he might be just like Momochi Zabuza."

"It might be better to search for the Rokubi before the Sanbi," Han said. "If it's the Mizukage we'll be going up against, we'll need strength in numbers."

" _Saiken is over there, northwest, three hundred kilometers away,"_ said Kokuo. _"It's easier for me to sense the other bijuu when we're so nearby. I think Isobu is further away though."_

"Right, as Kokuo says, we should find the Rokubi, Saiken, first," agreed Han.

Envy gnawed at Naruto's stomach. Why was everyone, even Grandpa Roshi, friends with their bijuu?

Meanwhile, he was saddled with a fox that hated his guts.

Naruto's mind drifted back to when he'd first met the Kyuubi.

A flash of claws.

Terrifying white fangs.

And red eyes that had been burning with the flames of a millennia of hatred.

" _How I would like to devour you..."_

How could he rescue Sasuke and become Hokage when he couldn't even make a friend? Especially with someone who had been with him since the beginning.

* * *

"Shino, what is this 'insect sixth sense' that you keep going on about, and how will it help us find Naruto?" Kiba asked grumpily.

"I am the best suited for tracking Naruto from here on out," Shino said calmly and quietly. "Why? Because he is traveling with a companion who is releasing a massive amount of insect pheromones that my kikaichuu are able to detect entire leagues away."

"First we were following the trail of bijuu chakra and mass destruction, then we started following the ramen trail, and now we're following the bug pheromone trail?"

"You know, it does make a lot of sense, if this scroll is anything to go by," Tenten said. "It says here that the Nanabi is a bug. A kabutomushi, to be precise."

"And Takigakure was the only village outside the Five Great Nations to ever have a jinchuuriki. The Nanabi jinchuuriki," Neji pointed out. "Speaking of that, read this bingo book that I picked up from an Iwa black market."

He opened up the book to a page that he'd bookmarked:

It was Naruto's ninja registration photo from when he was twelve. The kabuki actor one.

_WANTED: UZUMAKI NARUTO, also known as "CHOPSTICKS MASTER OF KONOHA," "ORANGE MONSTER," and "BLONDE DEMON OF THE LEAF"_

_CLASSIFICATION: S-Rank missing-nin_

_BOUNTY: 1,000,000,000 ryo_

_KNOWN FOR: Starting fight in Iwagakure hot spring, attacking Akatsuki member with chopsticks (see "WANTED" section), persuading kunoichi of Takigakure to run away from hometown, motives unknown_

_TRAVELING WITH: Kumogakure, Iwagakure, and Takigakure ninja_

_IF SEEN: Do **not** approach carelessly (CHOPSTICKS ARE KNOWN TO HAVE CAUSED SERIOUS DAMAGE). Alert authorities of Iwagakure, Kumogakure, and Takigakure **immediately**_

Well, wasn't that great? It was just as Tsunade-sama feared.

* * *

"Team Kakashi and Shizune, I need you all to do me a favor," Tsunade said. "Sort through all of this mail, and mark which ones are about Naruto, and which ones aren't. In the ones that are about Naruto, check if anyone has mentioned anything about calling a meeting or summit or whatever. Then keep those in a separate pile."

"Yes, Tsunade-sama," they chorused, staring nervously at the massive mountain of paperwork sitting on the desk.

"Well, bye," Tsunade-sama said.

The door slammed shut.

"Why are we being asked to do the Hokage's paperwork?" asked Sai. "Was Danzo-sama correct about her being an incompetent village administrator?"

"No...she's very stressed...and just wants to take a short break." Shizune stared worriedly at the door. "Who wouldn't be, in her situation?"

The five began sorting through the piles and piles of paperwork. It was like a paperwork blizzard had dropped six feet of paperwork snow onto Tsunade's desk. All of it was less than a week old.

"Chopsticks Master of Konoha." Yamato sorted it into the Naruto pile.

"Orange Monster." Kakashi added that one to the growing mountain.

"Blonde Demon of the Leaf." Sakura's hands were twitching dangerously.

"Angry letters from the Raikage, Tsuchikage, and Takigakure village leader, making unfounded accusations towards Tsunade-sama." Shizune was turning paler and paler.

What had Naruto gone and done?

Sai looked up. "Are those cute nicknames that I can use when I meet your teammate, Naruto-kun?"

"SAI!"


	13. Helping the Sick and Elderly

The Rokubi, Saiken, was nowhere near Kirigakure.

The foolish jinchuuriki drifted for ages and ages at sea, then on solid land, looking for the demon slug, said to have the power to corrode anything and everything.

" _That's odd,"_ Gyuuki said. _"Saiken's chakra...is acting up really strangely."_

" _Yeah,"_ said Son Goku. _"It was hard to tell from so far away, but as we keep getting closer and closer...it's like his chakra is leaking out."_

The water near the shore was an acrid green; there was no sign of any aquatic life.

And the mist...the mist just wouldn't let up.

Many foreigners who hadn't been to the Land of Water had many misconceptions about the place. It was assumed that only the Mist Village itself was...well, shrouded in mist.

Clearly that wasn't the case. As they reached closer and closer, the grass turned browner and browner. The trees were totally devoid of any leaves, and a foul smell emanated from the earth.

For some reason, bubbles upon bubbles filled the air.

And then out of nowhere...

"JUST WAIT OVER THERE, UTAKATA-SHISHOU. I'LL BE RIGHT BACK WITH THE HERBS."

It was a young girl about the same age as Fuu and Naruto.

She was obviously a ninja, but she had also obviously had a problem with using indoor voices. A short girl with long brownish-blonde hair and striking green eyes. She wasn't wearing the shinobi uniform or hitai-ate of any village, but rather a purple kimono.

And she slammed right into an oblivious Naruto.

"OWWW."

"That hurts! Watch where you're going!" she snapped.

"Watch where I'm going? You're the one who ran right into me," Naruto snapped right back, rubbing his sore head.

She softened a little at that. "I'm sorry, but my master isn't feeling well and I have to collect some herbs right now."

"Your master isn't feeling well?" Roshi asked.

That, on top of the strange news about Saiken, was enough to set the alarm bells ringing in everyone's heads.

"Have you tried giving him ramen?" asked Naruto. Never mind. Maybe not ringing in _everyone's_ heads.

"...What?"

"Ramen fixes everything. It's like a magic bullet or a wonder drug," Naruto said in a dead-serious voice. "One time, when I was training with – "

"Naruto, stop making everything about ramen," Yugito scolded. Then she turned to the young girl. "Please take us to your master. I'm sure we can find a way to fix him."

Anybody would have been very suspicious if a group of heavily armed foreign strangers offered to "fix" their sick master, but this was a group that _Naruto_ was in. And he was the kind of guy who would keep smiling a ridiculously happy smile and shooting passersby thumbs-up signs, so he drastically decreased the group's threatening aura.

Which was how Hotaru, the student of Utakata, jinchuuriki of Saiken, led the band of foolish jinchuuriki to her sick master.

* * *

"Sorry I'm late, Deidara-senpai!" said a robed, masked man. "It's just that I met an old lady who had a bunch of bags to carry, and her house was so far away, and she had arthritis, so I helped her! She gave me some candy and told me that I'm a good boy!"

"Tobi, what the hell." Deidara gave his partner in crime a withering look. "You're a member of Akatsuki. You need to act cool and awesome...like me. You can't be openly helping old people like that...it's uncool."

"Tobi joined the Akatsuki to make the world a better place," Tobi said proudly. "I want to make a world where old ladies don't have to carry heavy bags when they have arthritis and no one is there to help."

Deidara glanced at Tobi from the corner of his eye. There were times when he wasn't sure if Tobi's happy-go-lucky idiot personality was a hoax or not. Judging from the tone of voice, he sounded... _very_ serious about changing the world.

Who even joined the Akatsuki to be a good boy and make the world a better place for old ladies with arthritis? Tobi was a moron.

"I love jinchuuriki spy duty, Deidara-senpai, what about you?" said Tobi, as they peered through the gloom at the team of jinchuuriki. "That kid Naruto...he reminds me of me. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Hokage too."

Yep. Tobi was a moron.

Although that was the most information that Deidara had received about Tobi, ever. For all of his goofing off and joking around, Tobi was a man of mystery.

"Do you want a lollipop, Deidara-senpai?" Tobi asked, stuffing one into Deidara's hand.

"No."

"Come on, it tastes delicious!"

"I said no, un!"

The mouth on his hand surreptitiously licked the lollipop though.

Damn it. The lollipop _was_ delicious.

"So...what are they doing, senpai?" Tobi gazed at the sight of a young girl leading the team around a deserted field.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out, Tobi!"

"Tell Tobi if you figure it out, okay, senpai?"

"Un."


	14. Utakata's Seal and Kakashi's Mask

Under normal circumstances, Naruto might have, upon seeing Utakata for the first time, noted that he looked very similar to how Sasuke might well look like as an adult. With long, dark hair falling over his left eye, a calm and graceful appearance, and long blue kimono, he looked kinda cool, Naruto would have thought with some envy.

But these weren't normal circumstances. Utakata's face – unhealthily pale – shone with beads of sweat. Little globs of crimson chakra dripped, dripped, dripped to the ground from under his kimono, withering and smoking the green grass.

"Hotaru, who are these people?" he asked. "Didn't you fetch the herbs?"

"You must be a jinchuuriki, Utakata-san," said Han. "The Rokubi jinchuuriki?"

Utakata's exhausted face gave way to a deer in headlights expression. "How – "

"We're jinchuuriki too, Utakata-san!" Naruto beamed. "We're gonna help you get better and then we can get out of here!"

"What? You're all jinchuuriki?"

"That's right," said Yugito. "It looks there's some kind of problem with the seal that's containing your bijuu. Isn't that right, B?"

"Indeed, that's right," B rapped. "The seal is loose and we'll have to make it tight, and then he'll be all right."

"Can you explain that without rhymes, su?" asked Fuu.

Yugito gazed at the globs of red chakra. "How did this happen to you, Utakata-san? We Kumo jinchuuriki know quite a bit about seals, but this is the first time I've ever seen anything like this."

Utakata began coughing, and Hotaru handed him a glass of water. "It's – _cough_ – been happening for the past few days." He gulped down the water. "I don't know why."

"Show us your seal, then maybe we can figure out what's wrong with it," Yugito said.

Utakata undid the upper part of his kimono, exposing the seal inked onto his belly. Black ink bled into red chakra and spilled onto the ground.

B let out a low whistle. "That's one messed up seal, ya fool."

"How...how could this have happened to you, Utakata-san?" Naruto asked.

He couldn't help but be reminded of his training trip with Ero-sennin. They were working to control the Kyuubi chakra within him, and Ero-sennin had Gerotora from Mount Myoboku unwind the seal a bit.

Naruto only remembered the sound of an earth-shattering blast and his mind turning a blank red before waking up battered and bandaged.

Was this something like that?

A snort came from within his stomach.

" _Typical humans,"_ Kurama's voice boomed. _"They try to chain us and use us for their own benefit, and then it backfires."_

"Huh?"

Naruto was back in his mind, standing in the gloom surrounding the Kyuubi's cage. Red eyes stared at him malevolently. He pinched himself, hard, and was brought back into the real world.

"My master...Harusame...tried to remove Saiken from my body, years ago, but he was unsuccessful...he didn't want Kirigakure to use us as their weapon. I don't know why it's only acting up now, though," Utakata was saying.

Yugito stroked her chin. "Well, I suppose we could fix it if it's a simple problem. B, take a look at the seal and tell me what you think."

Killer B peered at the red-black chakra ink dripping from Utakata's abdomen. "It's not our Iron Armor Seal, but a whole other deal."

"I think it's a Nine Halls Seal, unique among the fuuinjutsu masters of Kirigakure," Yugito said thoughtfully. "Is that right, Utakata-san?"

"Yes," Utakata said. "You seem to know a lot about sealing, um..."

"Nii Yugito, jinchuuriki of the Nibi, Matatabi," she supplied. "Learning about these things was part of my detestable jinchuuriki training. But at least I gained a new friend out of the bijuu super weapon nonsense."

Matatabi purred in agreement.

"I think your master's tampering with the seal messed up the flow of energy in your body. B and I should be able to fix it, but your bijuu's chakra has been drained. It'll take an extremely long time to replace, and I don't know where we'll get enough chakra to replace it – " Yugito continued.

"I'll do it!"

Everyone turned to stare at Naruto. Even the bijuu started in surprise.

"W-what?" they all spluttered.

Naruto's eyes were burning with determination.

He, the future Hokage, would fix this. And then give Utakata some ramen, the magic bullet.

He would prove the Kyuubi wrong.

* * *

"Kakashi, any idea when our students might be coming back?" asked Asuma.

"No idea," he replied, taking a bite of dango and chewing, despite never even removing his mask, as far as Asuma could see.

"Kurenai, that has to be a genjutsu. Tell me that was a genjutsu," he implored, fixing Kakashi's face with an intent stare.

"It isn't," Kurenai muttered. "I think he's just removing the mask much faster than our eyes can see."

"THAT'S my rival!" Guy yelled proudly (everyone winced; what was it with Guy and no indoor voices?). "It's all because of our rivalry battles that he's improved his mask-removing speed so drastically. When we were kids, I remember actually seeing his whole face during our eating contests!"

Kurenai and Asuma gaped. "Wait, Guy, you've seen Kakashi's face?" they asked in unison.

"Anyway," Kakashi interjected, eager to turn the topic away from his mask. "My genin team is full of such problem kids, right?"

He smiled, feeling an odd sense of pride as he gazed down at Naruto's bingo book entry.

1,000,000,000 ryo...not bad, not bad at all, for the "Chopsticks Master of Konoha."

"Why does he have a kabuki actor photo?" Kurenai asked.

Asuma sighed. "That idiot...Konohamaru saw that and went and copied it on his ninja registration form. Because Naruto is his _rival_. Or something."

"Speaking of that, Asuma, _please_ tell your nephew to stop asking me if we're secretly married – "

"There you are, Kakashi-sensei! I've been looking for you for weeks."

Kakashi jumped. Oh no. It was Teuchi of Ichiraku. A person he'd been studiously avoiding ever since he'd read Naruto's "note." He'd been hanging around in Tsunade-sama's office and helping her write letters to the other Kage, asking them not to declare a Five Kage Summit (or a war). That tedium was nothing compared to impatient store-owners wanting their money back.

"Naruto owes me three thousand ryo, and he hasn't come back yet. As his sensei, you must – "

Kakashi felt a rare flash of irritation.

_I'm so gonna get you back for this, Naruto._

It was time to make Yamato grow Naruto's plants to a massive size, then plant them in the living room so that his house would become a jungle.

Konoha's Number One Unpredictable Ninja wasn't the only one who could pull off a good prank.

Kakashi eye-smiled.

A million miles away, Naruto felt a shiver run down his spine.


	15. Connections

Yugito frowned, ink brush in hand, as she delicately redrew the Nine Halls Seal on Utakata's belly.

The red chakra gradually faded back into black ink with her expert brushwork. Utakata's ashen face slowly regained color. The energy circulating through his body had returned to normal.

Except for…

"Naruto, are you sure about this?" Yugito asked. "Replenishing a bijuu's chakra is an unearthly task. To be honest, I don't think most jinchuuriki are even capable of it."

Naruto took a firm step forward. "I'll do it, ya know," he said. "I mean...the more that people tell me that I can't do something, the more I push myself to do it! And besides, Saiken is in trouble and needs help. Like Octopops said when I met him, we all gotta help each other, ya know?"

He placed his hand on Utakata's repaired seal, closed his eyes, and concentrated hard. And then in a gloomy mind space much like the one he shared with the Kyuubi, the Rokubi appeared.

A giant white slug, dripping with thick slimy goop, was gasping in pain and exhaustion. Most people would have found normal slugs – much less giant ones – _gross_ – but as the tears dripping from Saiken's eyes fell onto Naruto's head, a pang of sadness washed over him.

He used to cry like that a lot too, when he was a kid.

Human or bijuu, it didn't matter. Everyone cried when they got hurt. Naruto ran forwards.

"Hi, Saiken!" he yelled up at the slug. "Don't worry a bit! I'm gonna fix you and you'll feel better!"

Saiken momentarily ceased his crying and blinked at Naruto curiously.

"Who are you?" he asked in a surprisingly high-pitched voice.

"I'm Naruto, and I'm here to help," Naruto said, shooting Saiken a big thumbs-up. "I'm giving you some of my chakra so that you won't be tired and hurting anymore."

"Huh? But no human has enough chakra to replace a bijuu's." Saiken's eyes narrowed. "Wait a moment, you're a – " He stopped, speechless.

Naruto placed his hand on Saiken's torso, flowing his chakra into the demon slug.

It wasn't the Kyuubi's crimson red; it was Naruto's very own buttery yellow chakra that was flowing into the Rokubi.

Human and bijuu stared at the yellow thread linking them together.

An odd voice – old and tired, but still brimming with wisdom – flowed through Naruto's mind.

" _Chakra is a force meant to connect everyone..."_

Naruto blinked, looking around for the owner of the voice, his confusion mounting when no such person could be found. Was he hallucinating now?

He snapped back to the present. His chakra was being absorbed by Saiken _rapidly_. The slug was growing fuller and fuller, and a mounting wave of tiredness was slowly crashing over Naruto with every drop of chakra he gave.

And within no time, Saiken's face was glowing with the picture of health.

"I – thank you," Saiken began to say. "You're a very strange human..."

Then Naruto collapsed, but not before uttering a string of words totally incomprehensible to the Rokubi: _"Need...ramen...now..."_

Saiken stared at the bizarrely foolish and kind jinchuuriki.

What the hell?

* * *

A warm, crackling campfire.

Yummy fish caught from a nearby stream.

Irritated muttering, scowling, and a general burned-out aura.

It was one of the many camping trips of the Naruto search party.

Akamaru's white fur was matted with dirt thanks to many days of running. Kiba wasn't much better. Shino's long overcoat was in tatters, and everyone's mission gear was practically shredded into pieces.

Despite all this, Lee was humming cheerfully as he munched on his fried fish.

"Neji, Tenten, the Land of Water is really beautiful, isn't it?" asked the much too youthful ninja.

Tenten grumbled noncommittally and Neji simply stared gloomily into the distance.

"We've been on this wild goose chase for almost a month now," Tenten muttered, poking at the fire with a stick. "Why can't that idiot Naruto stay still? So many times we've been on the verge of catching him, and he goes and runs away again."

"Just think of it as a challenge to prove our youthful – " Lee began, but clammed up immediately when his teammates fixed him with furious stares.

"There are only two more jinchuuriki he could possibly find, and both of them are Kiri ninja," said Neji. "Although I must say, I'm not at all surprised that so far, Naruto seems to have befriended every single jinchuuriki he's met."

"I think Naruto will make friends with every single person he meets," Tenten agreed. "You know, I bet that he's become friends with those other bijuu too, not just the jinchuuriki..."

"He must be talking to them all about the wonders of ramen or something." Neji's tone had thawed slightly, a hint of a smile in his voice. "Those poor bijuu must be so confused. They won't know what hit them."

"When we see Naruto-kun again, we can all have a joint youthful ramen eating contest together!" Lee yelled enthusiastically. "Just like we had a few years – "

"NO!" Neji and Tenten bellowed as one.

They did not want to witness Lee puking after eating ten bowls of ramen too many.

Both of them shuddered.

No. Absolutely not.

Naruto had caused all of Konoha, Iwa, Kumo, and Taki to have a massive conniption. Between Tsunade-sama's binge-drinking, the mass destruction of the Earth's countryside, the battle in the bathhouse, and straight-up dropping out of the sky and escaping with a rogue Takigakure jinchuuriki, the migraines he'd caused were of gigantic proportions.

And the Sugoi Ramen chopsticks incident. Naruto would _pay_ for that. The stains still hadn't come out of Neji's clothes and Tenten's tongue was still void of all sensation.

No ramen eating contest with Naruto, ever again.

They couldn't let him off that easily. If Tenten and Neji had their way, Naruto would be forced to endure a million of Guy-sensei's "Dynamic Entries" as punishment.

As it happened, it was Neji on guard duty that night.

And what he saw with his Byakugan made his jaw drop.

Bijuu chakra leaking like a drippy faucet, all over the countryside, destroying everything in its path. Except that it stopped leaking somewhere in a lonely field, and Neji could clearly see eight people running off into the distance. And one of them was most certainly...

_Naruto._

It seemed as though there would be no rest for the Konoha 11 tonight.


	16. Group Fist Bumps

Naruto woke up to find seven pairs of concerned eyes staring at his face. He tried to get up, but Roshi pushed him back down.

"Easy, kid," he said. "You used up a huge amount of chakra to heal Saiken. You need to rest for a bit."

Yugito nodded. "To be honest, I have no idea how you aren't in a coma. That amount of chakra...how did you even do that? It shouldn't have been physically possible."

" _Still, you have guts, Naruto,"_ spoke Son Goku, within the bijuu-jinchuuriki shared mind space. _"It's the first time I've ever seen a human do anything on that scale for a bijuu."_

The giant monkey held out his hand to Naruto. _"Give me a fist bump. Gyuuki's jinchuuriki was right to pick up someone like_ _Naruto_ _, eh, Kurama?"_

There was no response. Naruto didn't know what to make of it, but he shoved the thought out of his mind and rapped his knuckles against those of the "Handsome Monkey King."

As their fists met, that odd spark that he'd felt with Saiken jolted through his body again.

But they weren't even sharing chakra...were they…?

" _Oi, don't forget about us,"_ said Matatabi, extending her right paw towards Naruto. _"We all must help each other, as you said. You have my appreciation, Naruto-kun."_

Then Fuu popped up in the mind space too, alongside Lucky Seven Chomei.

"Yeah, su!" she yelled. "Group fist bump. We're the world's awesomely spectacular lucky charms, and I'm so close to my hundred friends goal, su!"

" _Seriously, Fuu?"_ Chomei muttered.

But sure enough, all of them – _all of them_ , including the recovered Saiken and Utakata – had crowded around in the mind space, taking up tons of room. The mind was an infinite space...yet somehow the foolish jinchuuriki and bijuu had filled it fit to bursting. Even _Hotaru_ was there, and she wasn't even a jinchuuriki. Did Utakata somehow bring her along?

"All right!" Killer B rapped. "Time to fight! Our last bijuu is in sight! After Naruto recovers, we'll run into the night!"

" _That's right, Isobu and his jinchuuriki are the last ones we have to find,"_ Gyuuki rumbled. _"Onwards to Kiri."_

They all bumped fists.

Kurama watched the whole scene, embers of uncertainty flaring up in his mind.

For once, words failed him. But one thing was for sure: Naruto was definitely Konoha's Number One Unpredictable Ninja. And he had lost a huge amount of chakra thanks to his both kind and foolish plan to save Saiken.

Kurama sighed. There was only one thing left to do. He concentrated hard, letting his crimson red chakra flow into Naruto's drained keirakukei.

Warmth and vigor returned to Naruto's face within minutes.

Hotaru found a ramen shop in a nearby town for dinner. Evidently, she had taken Naruto's words seriously about ramen being a "magic bullet" and a "wonder drug."

Naruto devoured twenty bowls' worth of miso ramen with chashu, boiled eggs, and naruto toppings, and then took all of the chopsticks again.

He paid the shopkeeper a lot of money once more, so the poor guy didn't complain.

By midnight, they were racing fast to their final destination – Kirigakure.

Unbeknownst to them, Naruto's incredibly irritated and tired friends were a mere hair's breadth away from them all throughout the journey.

* * *

Back in the Akatsuki lair, there was pandemonium. Or maybe it was just a normal day. You could never be too sure with a group of murderous S-rank missing-nin.

It all started with Kakuzu bringing back one of those bingo books from the Iwagakure black market.

The miserly man was always looking to make money in whatever way possible, and was leafing through the bingo book, thinking that he might as well pick off some petty thief or low-ranking criminal and collect the bounty.

Then he came to Naruto's page and lost his mind.

Apparently, the idiot teenage Konoha genin who had attempted to defeat Hidan via chopstick murder was worth _1,000,000,000_ _ryo_.

And had somehow attained nicknames such as "Chopsticks Master of Konoha," "Orange Monster," and "Blonde Demon of the Leaf."

Even his godforsaken ninja registration photo was the epitome of a sneaky ninja – no one in the world would be able to identify Naruto if they believed him to be a kabuki actor.

 _Kakuzu_ didn't even have such a big bounty on his head. And he had tried to murder the First Hokage, once upon a time.

Hidan, who'd been wondering what the hell his partner was so avidly reading, ripped the bingo book out of Kakuzu's hands, and then _he'd_ promptly lost his mind as well.

All it took for the hideout to become the site of a bloodbath was for Kisame and Samehada to chance upon the book and read it too.

And now…

Well, usually the saying was, "When pots fly, people cry."

But in the case of _these_ foolish criminals, it was, "Swords, scythes, exploding clay, and random debris were flying, and people may have _died._ "

Only Itachi wasn't participating in the hooliganism.

Then Pain and Konan stepped in and stopped the mayhem with a small Shinra Tensei and an origami explosion. Small for them, large for the others. They all went flying.

"Silence, you fools!" Pain snarled. "What is the meaning of this nonsense?"

"Leaders, they are all...upset about Uzumaki Naruto's recent entry in the bingo book," Itachi clarified. "He's apparently gotten a bigger bounty than many of our members combined. Either someone is outraged, or someone is jealous."

"Be that as it may," said Konan. "Such behavior is absolutely unacceptable."

There was a lot of grumbling and muttering at this pronouncement.

"And besides," Pain continued. "You will all have your chance for revenge on the foolish jinchuuriki soon enough. They are currently traveling to Kirigakure to search for the Yondaime Mizukage, and you will find them, ambush them, and bring them all here."

There was a lot of whooping and cheering at this pronouncement.

"Leader," said Itachi. "I'm afraid I'll have to excuse myself and Kisame from this assignment."

Pain and Konan stared at Itachi impassively.

"His brother, Uchiha Sasuke," Zetsu hissed to them. "He's defeated Orochimaru at last. They must settle their family feud, after all."

"Ah. Well then, you two alone are excused." Pain turned towards the rest of the Akatsuki. "As for you all, get ready. You'll be fighting them within hours."

More whooping and cheering, before they dispersed for battle preparations.

And when no one was present except for Pain, Konan, and Zetsu, a certain masked man materialized into the hideout.

"It is time?" asked the so-called Tobi.

"Indeed," Pain said. He and Konan gave the true Leader short nods. "We leave it all to you now."


	17. Some People are Younger than Expected

Kirigakure definitely wasn't anyone's idea of a great vacation spot.

Even though it was located right next to the beautiful sparkling blue sea, and in a better world, might have well become a top tourist destination, the place was, for numerous reasons, choked in a mist of death, misery, and hopelessness.

The thick white fog draped over the foolish jinchuurikis' eyes, obscuring everything, as they ran past dilapidated buildings, shuttered doors and windows, and ragged children on the streets. Naruto could halfway understand why Zabuza ditched the place. Kiri looked like a nightmare.

But even in this apocalyptic wasteland, it seemed as though Naruto's reputation had preceded him. Watchful eyes noted his hair, glinting like the sun itself, and his smile, which glinted _brighter_ than the sun itself, and people muttered incomprehensibly under their breaths.

"Is it him? The Orange Monster?"

"It is. He's worth even more than Zabuza himself."

"Look at his _hair_. It really is blonde."

"The Chopsticks Master of Konoha? Why is he here?"

"Does he want to destroy the only hot spring that we have?"

"Maybe he wants to kill the Mizukage. Or maybe he wants to make friends with the Mizukage?"

"I think he'll kidnap the Mizukage and they'll all join a circus together."

"I heard that he has a group of friends. Look at them. They're all here."

The foolish jinchuuriki, however, paid no heed to the attention they were generating, being single-mindedly fixated on their target – the Yondaime, Karatachi Yagura, and the Sanbi, Isobu, the demon turtle, Beach Stroker, whose shell was as hard as diamond and whose three tails could generate tsunamis, shipwrecking even the most experienced of sailors.

"Why is the village like this, su?" asked Fuu, as they turned one particularly depressing-looking corner and into a dark alley (maybe it wasn't a great idea to go into the dark alleys of the Mist Village of all places…).

"Years of civil war, basically," Utakata said. "The Yondaime Mizukage is a tyrant and a despot responsible for the village's nickname 'Bloody Mist,' and he made everyone's lives miserable, or so I've heard. Others say that it isn't really him who's behind the Bloody Mist, but someone else pulling the strings from the shadows. Whatever the case, I don't know. I left the village ages ago. But he's still around and the village is split up into multiple warring factions now. One of the leaders is some lady named Mei, or something like that."

"What about Zabuza?" Naruto asked. "He told me that he tried to kill the Yondaime."

"You met Zabuza?" Hotaru's eyes were as wide as a goldfish's. "Shishou told me that he was a cold-blooded monster."

"Yeah, well, he seemed like a real jerk at first, but then he turned out to be a really cool guy!" Naruto replied with a big smile. "He was our enemy, but he was a cool enemy. I liked him and his apprentice Haku. They helped me find my ninja way, ya know!"

Roshi started muttering darkly under his breath again, as he was wont to do whenever Naruto made ridiculous statements.

"Anyway, where do we find – and if necessary – subdue the Yondaime?" Yugito asked.

Utakata pointed. A looming tower, looking pretty similar to the Hokage Tower back in Konoha, lurched into their vision. Well, it looked like a tower, but it was shrouded in thick gray, almost black mist, so it was hard to tell.

They could practically feel the chakra seeping from the dense fog.

 _"B, that's definitely some strong genjutsu that's been cast over the tower,"_ Gyuuki warned. _"I don't know who's behind it, but they have some massive amounts of chakra…I bet it's a preventative mist to stop intruders. The Mizukage must not have any human security guards."_

"But Eight-o, when we're a team, none of us will fall into any genjutsu dream!" B rapped.

"Um…what the hell, su? Can't you talk without rapping, Octopops?" complained Fuu.

Yugito sighed. "He _means_ that as jinchuuriki, we don't have to be worried about falling into genjutsu. It's because our bijuu can disrupt our chakra and bail us out."

"OK!" Naruto pounded his fist into his palm. "We'll get past the genjutsu, and then we'll get to the Yondaime Mizukage and knock some sense into him. Maybe I'll get to stab him with my chopsticks!"

"What is wrong with you, kid?" Roshi glared at the annoying young teenager who talked far too much. "You can't just stab the Mizukage with chopsticks. So far, we've just caused international scandals and a manhunt. If you do something like attack the Mizukage, you'll have started a war."

"We're already long past that point, Roshi," Han said. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Hokage, Tsunade-sama, is already drowning in angry letters from around the world, demanding a Five Kage Summit."

They sped up, the gloomy tower getting closer and closer. Yet the motley team rushed through the blinding mist and into their destination.

Surprisingly, the Mizukage Tower, upon a closer examination, was not at all dark and gloomy, but merely gave the appearance of being so thanks to the genjutsu mist.

The actual tower was sleek and modern, not exactly a skyscraper, but quite close to one. Shiny glass reflected blue skies and a cheery sun. It almost…looked like a five-star hotel.

What was up with that weird genjutsu that made it look like an evil daimyo's fortress or something?

The Mizukage's place was sweet. Naruto took mental notes, so that when he became Hokage, he could make some improvements to the Tower back home.

You would think that with the heavy mist veiling the tower from view, that it would have been hard to find the Mizukage.

It wasn't. He was on the very first floor, behind the first handsome mahogany door that the foolish jinchuuriki team had decided to open.

The distinguished and terrifying Yondaime was seated seemingly benignly behind a polished wooden desk, stacks of paperwork piled sky-high.

Even evil overlords had tons of paperwork, it seemed.

For someone who had supposedly ushered in the Era of Bloody Mist, the Yondaime Mizukage was…a kid.

Yep, a kid.

A kid with with messy gray hair and a wicked-looking scar running from his left eye to his cheek, and armed with a deadly hooked staff, but a kid nonetheless.

What was he, thirteen years old? How did he even become Mizukage? Even Gaara was fifteen or sixteen when he became Kazekage.

Naruto was just about to voice those thoughts out loud, when a loud, obnoxious voice shattered the air.

"Finally, it's time for payback, unbelievers! I still owe you for stabbing me in the neck with those chopsticks."


	18. A Group of Very Angry Friends

The Yondaime was not alone.

About half of all the members of the Akatsuki stepped out of the shadows.

Hidan. Kakuzu. Deidara. And most mysteriously, a strange, masked man whom none of the foolish jinchuuriki had ever encountered before.

"Deidara-senpai!" yelled the masked guy. "It's really him! Uzumaki Naruto. The Orange Monster. The Blonde Demon of the Leaf. The Chopsticks Master of Konoha!" Tobi giggled like a hyper teenager who had consumed far too much sugar and turned in the direction of a very surprised Naruto. "Naruto-san, CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH?"

Tobi bellowed out that last part at an ear-splitting volume. Unfortunately for Deidara, his eardrums bore the brunt of the damage.

"Tobi, you moron!" the Iwa missing-nin snarled. "How many times have I told you not to SCREAM when I'm RIGHT NEXT TO YOU? And what do you think you're doing, un? Why the HELL would you ask your enemy for an autograph instead of your own senpai?"

Judging from his chagrined tone, Deidara was…jealous that someone else had bagged the attention of his idiot partner. And thus, he too was shrieking at an ear-splitting volume. Unfortunately for Tobi, this time, _his_ eardrums were in the line of fire.

"Owww, owww," Tobi muttered, clapping his hands over his ears. "Deidara-senpai, use your indoor voice! The Leader won't be happy!"

"What was that? You're the last person I want to be hearing that from, Tobi – "

"Enough," Kakuzu snapped. "Tobi, I take it that you can maintain the genjutsu on the Yondaime? The Leader mentioned something like that to me."

"Yep!" he chirped happily. "Tobi can!"

"Good. You stay out of the fight and keep a watch on the Mizukage." Kakuzu jerked his masked face towards the jinchuuriki. "Hidan, Deidara, and I will take care of these fools."

"Hold up," said Roshi. "What happened to the shark man and his Uchiha friend? Shouldn't they be here with you buffoons? And what do you mean, genjutsu on the Yondaime?"

"Didn't you know?" Kakuzu leered at Roshi. "The Yondaime Mizukage has been our puppet for quite some time. _We_ are the ones running the Bloody Mist."

Sure enough, now that the band of foolish jinchuuriki tore their attentions from the Akatsuki and onto Yagura, they could see that the Mizukage was acting in a very strange manner. He continued stamping his paperwork, blissfully oblivious to the fight that was breaking out right under his nose.

His eyes were glazed over. They looked…red. Like…

 _"Sharingan,"_ the Kyuubi hissed. _"The Mizukage is under a Sharingan genjutsu."_

 _"Is that so, Kurama?"_ asked Son Goku. _"I must say, it's the first time in a long while that you've opened your mouth."_

Kurama opened his mouth for a second time, but he was cut off before he could speak by Kakuzu:

"And as for Itachi…he has some _family business_ to attend to. Something about a younger brother? And Kisame, being his partner, went with him."

"Itachi's going after Sasuke?" Naruto asked.

"Son of a bitch, that's the least of your problems here." Hidan swung his pointy scythe around like the maniac that he most assuredly was. "I made an oath to Jashin to defeat you and now I finally get a chance!"

With that, Hidan quit the evil monologue and embarked on the other time-honored staple of any villain: the evil laugh.

"GWA HA HA HA HA HA!"

It sure was a long-winded, evil villain laugh, right out of the most cliché movies. It was also incredibly unwise to leave yourself wide open just to get out a stereotypical evil villain laugh. But Hidan didn't learn from the last time in the hot spring.

And just like before…

"EIGHT TRIGRAMS VACUUM PALM!" bellowed two voices.

Okay, maybe not _exactly_ like before. It wasn't chopsticks that he was assailed by, but…

A wall of air slammed right into Hidan and sent him smashing into the Mizukage's desk.

The stacks of paperwork, formerly piled sky-high, decided to descend on top of Hidan. Within seconds, he was buried under a paperwork avalanche. The Mizukage paid no heed.

Hinata and Neji burst into the room. Bedraggled, as though they'd been running around various countries nonstop for a month; exhausted, like they'd barely gotten any rest during the duration of that time; but triumphant, as they'd finally reached their target.

"Naruto-kun, are you all right?" Hinata asked with some concern.

"Naruto," Neji said in a very steely voice. "After this is over, we'll be having a _talk_."

Just the way Neji said the word _talk_ sent spine-chilling fear coursing through Naruto's body.

"These your friends, Naruto?" asked Yugito, eyeing the new arrivals with interest.

"Great, su, that means I'll hit my hundred friends goal today, su!" exclaimed Fuu.

Chomei sighed. _"Fuu, now is not the time…"_

"Hi, Hinata, Neji." Naruto laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. "Gotta say, it's kinda surprising to see you guys over here…why _are_ you all here…?"

"WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN, YOU IDIOT?" Ino roared, sprinting into the room along with the rest of the beleaguered Konoha 11. "You ran away from the village and we were sent to look for you!"

Tenten nodded fiercely, cracking her knuckles. "Naruto, do you _know_ what you put Tsunade-sama through? She started binge-drinking because of you."

"But I asked Sakura-chan to tell her not to worry!" the idiot protested.

Neji just _stared_ at him. It was a hell of a stare. Lesser mortals would have turned to stone upon meeting that stare.

"You mean that…note?" Neji said in a frighteningly deadpan voice. "The one in which you asked Kakashi-sensei to water your plants and added a smiley-face at the end?"

"Yeah!" Naruto said, like his "note" was a perfectly sensible thing to write when embarking on a quest to become a missing-nin and start a war.

"Neji, let us discuss this later! We all know that Naruto-kun didn't mean any harm," Lee said. "Right now, we have an enemy to defeat!"

Oh, right. The Akatsuki.

"More unbelievers?" Hidan asked, extricating himself from the paperwork avalanche.

"I've seen a few of these guys before, un," Deidara said, fixing Team Guy with a baleful look.

The fight was on.

It's just that it turned _off_ very, very quickly.


	19. A Full-Blown Party Breaks Out

As it turned out, the Konoha 11 weren't the only ones to have caught up to the band of foolish jinchuuriki.

A tremendous explosion shook the very foundations of the building.

And then the roof exploded, raining shards of glass, chunks of plaster, and icy cold precipitation all over the jinchuuriki, the Konoha search party, and the Akatsuki. Hidan shrieked in outrage as he was once again buried in debris, and Deidara gawped in surprise and admiration, muttering, "Awesome artwork, un."

"B-sama!" Karui shouted excitedly.

"B-sama!" Omoi shouted worriedly.

"You're all right, B-sama! I knew you could handle things!" said Karui.

"B-sama, I'm so relieved. Every night, I had these awful nightmares about how you were kidnapped by a pack of ninja monkeys or ninja donkeys, or that you were eaten by angry piranhas, and – " said Omoi, frowning up a storm.

"Okay, that's enough, you two," said C. "B-san, I know that your vacation was very interesting and fun, but we have to head back home."

"Yeah," continued a bored Darui. "I know it's dull, but we've heard that Raikage-sama is going bonkers and Mabui was able to repair the windows and walls that he broke only a few days ago."

"Karui, Omoi, C, Darui," said B, giving his Kumo compatriots a thumbs-up and a big smile. "I'd hoped that things back home were just peachy. Not to be too preachy, but we have to beat these guys before we can rest easy."

"Are you all just gonna ignore me?" Yugito snapped. "I went missing-nin too!"

C and Darui turned pale upon remembering the second meltdown the Raikage had suffered, and chose to keep their mouths shut, perhaps wisely.

Tenten started muttering darkly under her breath about "lunatic rappers." Neji grasped her shoulders, perhaps to give her some comfort, or perhaps to steady himself after listening to such a hideous rhyme.

Roshi shot them sympathetic looks, and even the calm and collected Utakata, who had so far tolerated the hideous rapping with grace, had closed his eyes at the intrusion of _more_ Kumo ninja, who appeared to be just as insane as B.

"You've brought reinforcements?" asked Kakuzu.

"This is bad, un," Deidara muttered. "We were prepared to fight only the jinchuuriki, not all of them, plus their friends and – AARGH!"

A blast of wind erupted across the Mizukage's office once more, sending poor Deidara flying, this time not from Hinata or Neji but from –

"That's for kidnapping Gaara!" yelled Temari, running into the room alongside Kankuro and a whole squad of Suna ninja.

"Oh, this is gonna get troublesome," Shikamaru muttered under his breath, careful not to let Temari hear.

"Naruto, you've sure gone and caused a lot of trouble, haven't you?" said Kankuro. "Gaara is pretty upset, you know."

"Upset?" asked Naruto, with a most perplexed expression on his face. "Don't tell me he started binge-drinking like baa-chan…"

"No." Kankuro looked almost amused. "He was _jealous_. Jealous that you didn't invite him along on your little adventure."

"I've never seen Gaara jealous until last week. Kept muttering under his breath and staring at his paperwork like it had committed a grave crime," Temari said, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Then he went on a gardening spree. The Suna greenhouses have never had so many cacti in one place before."

Before Naruto could comment on the insanity of Gaara unleashing his hurt and jealousy at being left out by binge-gardening, the Mizukage Tower was stormed again, the windows smashing open this time, instead of the roof.

By Iwa ninja.

 _And_ Taki ninja.

It seemed that, in the ninja world, all roads led to Kiri…or perhaps just the Chopsticks Master of Konoha and future Hokage.

It was such a massive setback for the Akatsuki, that even Tobi, the group's secret mastermind, was more than a bit taken aback.

What the hell were the odds that _all_ the ninja searching for the jinchuuriki would _all_ show up at the exact same time just as _all_ the remaining jinchuuriki were gathered into one place and ready for capture?

It was the sort of ludicrous coincidence that would only ever happen in someone's fevered Infinite Tsukuyomi dream.

The ensuing battle was short, nasty, and brutal, but most importantly, it was ridiculous, in ways too numerous to elaborate on.

Things didn't go too well for Hidan, who got a faceful of Akamaru's acidic urine and a Gatsuuga to the torso, after being held in place by Shikamaru's Shadow Paralysis and Ino's Mind Transfer.

Things didn't go too well for Kakuzu either. He was stabbed in one heart by Tenten's fuuma shuriken. He was stabbed in the other heart by some Taki ninja's sword.

And Deidara was not the only person who knew how to enter with a bang. Lee's Severe Leaf Hurricane was just as explosive as Deidara's blasting clay, and the bomber nin was barely pulled away by Tobi in the nick of time before he could get flattened by Chouji's massively expanded arm.

There was utter pandemonium throughout the room, but Karatachi Yagura was still stamping away at his paperwork, humming a jaunty tune under his breath.

It was clear to "Tobi" that in the chaos, they would never be able to kidnap all the jinchuuriki at once, as he'd originally planned.

So he made a decision that would have far-reaching repercussions.

"Deidara-senpai! Hidan-senpai! Kakuzu-senpai!" he yelped. "I have a plan!"

Deidara's eyes widened as his oddball partner approached him with a chunk of broken plaster that he had taken from the debris of the destroyed roof.

"Tobi, wait, what are you – !"

_THWACK._

_THWACK._

_THWACK._

Three unconscious missing-nin and one Tobi teleported the hell out of there with the Kamui. _Where_ they teleported to would be quite significant in the coming days, but in the meantime, the jinchuuriki team and the various search parties were blinking in confusion as their enemies suddenly vanished into thin air.

And there was Yagura, jinchuuriki of Isobu, sitting at his desk, humming happily, and _still_ under a genjutsu.

They needed to fix that.


	20. Some People are Older than Expected

"All right then," said one of the Iwa ninja triumphantly. "Now that we've taken care of those Akatsuki…"

He fixed his gaze upon the band of foolish jinchuuriki, his intent plain to see.

Shikamaru cleared his throat. "Unfortunately, we cannot allow any foreign ninja to take our jinchuuriki into custody. Konoha's Hokage will absolutely not allow it."

"And neither will the Kazekage of Suna," Temari supplied. "We'll choose to support our allies, the Leaf, in all jinchuuriki-related matters as we owe them a great debt of gratitude for past favors."

Shikamaru shot Temari a grateful look. Looked like her being here wasn't so troublesome after all.

"The same goes for Kumogakure," said Darui.

"As well as for Takigakure," said one Taki guy.

The Iwa ninja spluttered. "But…we have been ordered to take all missing-nin in the bingo book into – "

"Then call a Five Kage Summit or whatever, but you cannot take Naruto under our watch," Neji said, stepping in front of Naruto almost protectively.

Neji shot Naruto a _look_. An "I'm bailing you out and you owe me _big-time_ for the hell you put me through" look.

Naruto just gave Neji a happy grin. The poor Hyuuga sighed.

"Very…very well," said Iwa ninja number two.

"And anyway, I'm almost at my hundred friends goal," Fuu pointed out. "We just have to free the Mizukage from this genjutsu and then I'll reach friend number one hundred, su!"

They all turned their attention to the poor Mizukage.

 _"Naruto, we need to break the genjutsu together with all the bijuu,"_ Kurama said.

"Whoa, whoa, what's going on?" asked Naruto. "Since when do you want to help me?"

Kurama remained sullenly silent.

 _"I thought that something was off about how fast Naruto recovered after giving his chakra to Saiken,"_ said Gyuuki. _"Now I get it. Kurama, you helped Na – "_

 _"Shut up!"_ the fox said. _"It's just that…I recognize this power. It's been cast by the Sharingan that I was controlled by when I attacked Konoha."_

"You were under the control of a Sharingan when you attacked Konoha?" Naruto scratched his head. "So it wasn't your fault that the village was destroyed, but this guy who controlled you?"

The Kyuubi grunted. _"And I have no desire to see anyone else caught under that awful genjutsu…even an idiot like Shukaku,"_ he conceded grudgingly.

The other bijuu scrutinized Kurama curiously in their shared mind space. If the fox could have blushed under all that fur, then he probably would have.

But instead, he averted his eyes from his brethren and snapped, _"Well? Don't just stand there. We have to break the genjutsu together."_

 _"Right,"_ said Saiken. _"And I think you're also warming up to – "_

 _"We'll start on the count of three,"_ Kurama said hastily.

The jinchuuriki gathered in a circle around Yagura, each placing a hand on his back.

"One," said Naruto.

"Two," said B.

"Three, su!" said Fuu.

They all concentrated hard, bijuu and jinchuuriki together, flowing their chakra deep into Yagura's chakra coils, and directly into Isobu.

The glazed over, red-eyed look faded from Yagura's visage.

He blinked up at the smiling Naruto, then looked around his office, noticing the chaos for the first time.

"Wh-where am I? What's going on?" Yagura muttered.

The poor guy was then halfway choked to death when Naruto wrapped his arms around his neck.

"Little kid," Naruto sobbed – yes, _sobbed_. "I was so worried about you for a second. I thought that I might need to stab you with my chopsticks for a while. But I'm so glad that you're okay…"

"What – what in the world?" Yagura struggled to extricate himself from the emotional Orange Monster. "Owww, owww, you're choking me…"

Tenten started muttering darkly under her breath when Lee also turned to her with misty eyes.

Naruto finally let go. "Anyway, Little Kid Mizukage, you're freed from the genjutsu that someone cast on you, so everything is fine now!"

"Little kid? What the hell? I'm an adult! I'm in my thirties!"

Naruto gaped at the Mizukage, whose confusion was rapidly melting into irritation.

"You…are in your thirties?" Naruto was staring at Yagura as though he had grown thirty heads instead of thirty years. "You're not a teenager?"

"I'm thirty-five," Yagura said. "And…genjutsu? Are you saying that I was stuck in a genjutsu?"

"Yeah, I thought I had to knock some sense into you by stabbing you with my chopsticks, but…"

_"You wanted to stab me with chopsticks?"_

Everyone in their respective search parties exchanged tired looks.

Yeah, this would take a long time to explain.

But maybe there wouldn't be any war, after all.


	21. The War that Never Was

The air was chilly as the Mizukage stared out at the sea of faces in front of his tower. Faces he hadn't seen in years…years of being stuck under a mind-numbing genjutsu. Both familiar and unfamiliar faces dotted the crowd, and Yagura was determined to know them all and befriend them all.

It was the least he could do. He took a deep breath and began to address the crowd:

"My dear citizens of Kirigakure and the Land of Water. The civil war that has destroyed our land and caused so much heartbreak is now at an end."

At this point, Naruto gave the crowd a big thumbs-up. Ino smacked his hand down and glowered at him.

"I'm well-aware that I was _not_ aware of anything that was happening in this village for the past so many years. I have been told by this fine group of people" – here he paused to nod to the jinchuuriki and their respective search parties, standing behind him – "that under my reign, Kirigakure came to be known as the Village of the Bloody Mist."

Yagura got down on his knees and bowed lowly to the crowd, his citizens.

"I know that my claims of being under a genjutsu will be seen as just an excuse by many of you, maybe even all of you. Still, I arrogantly beg for your forgiveness."

He stood up and removed the Mizukage headgear from his head.

"I know that it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to regain your trust. But on my end, this is all I can do." Yagura placed the hat in Terumi Mei's hands. "From today onwards, the leader of the forces who opposed me, Mei-sama, shall be the Godaime Mizukage. I am retiring after I and Mei-sama attend the Five Kage Summit scheduled to take place in Konoha next week."

At this juncture, the muttering of tens of thousands of villagers filled the air, rather like a massive beehive.

"And," Yagura continued. "I would like to give my thanks to these brave shinobi from all across the world. They freed me, and they freed you."

The crowd's muttering increased in intensity as the foolish jinchuuriki and their search teams stepped forwards and bowed.

"It's him."

"The Chopsticks Master of Konoha?"

"Can't believe he saved our village."

"Why was he a missing-nin again?"

"For blowing up a hot spring."

"He's kinda cool."

"He looks like an idiot."

"Shut up. He's a cool idiot."

That night, as their wooden boat set off across the ocean towards Konoha, Naruto and the aggrieved parties of the Konoha 11 finally had their _talk_.

It went about as well as you'd expect.

"Don't ever, ever blow up a hot spring ever again, do you hear me?" Ino yelled for the thirtieth time, grabbing Naruto's ear and pulling.

"Okay, okay, I get it," Naruto mumbled as she finally let go, and began massaging his sore ear.

Next up was Neji. He'd put on his terrifying _I'll-turn-you-to-stone-if-you-blink-at-me-the-wrong-way_ look again. Naruto gulped.

"Naruto." Neji's voice was sharp. Like a blade made of diamond. He gestured at his once-pristine white clothing, now littered with stains that looked suspiciously like they'd come from ramen broth.

"Do you see this?" he asked.

Naruto nodded meekly.

"Do you know why my clothes are like this?" Neji pressed.

Naruto shook his head meekly.

"Do you have any chopsticks with you?"

Naruto blinked. "Huh?"

"Turn out your pockets and give me your chopsticks," Neji said. His tone left no room for argument.

Naruto did so, sheepishly handing over all the chopsticks in his possession. There were about a hundred pairs.

Neji clenched his fist so hard that his knuckles turned white and the chopsticks were in real danger of breaking.

"It's because you took all of the chopsticks from that ramen shop in Reihoku Town," said Neji. "We all had to eat boiling hot ramen bare-handed. Tenten burned her tongue. Did you consider that, Chopsticks Master of Konoha?"

"You went to Reihoku Town too?" Naruto asked excitedly. "I didn't know that you liked ramen, Neji!"

Neji activated his Byakugan. The veins around his eyes bulged and Naruto gulped.

"Naruto," said Shino. "Neji does not have any special liking towards ramen. Why did we all visit a ramen shop? Because we all knew that you would go to any location that has ramen."

"Oh…I see." Naruto rubbed the back of his head.

"We are all very acquainted with your habits, likes, and dislikes," Shino said. His voice sounded…something strange. Naruto couldn't put his finger on it. "Why? Because we are your friends. Yet I am extremely disappointed that you did not come to consult us after three long years of training with Jiraiya-sama, and instead embarked upon a new mission with your new friends and only left a small note."

Oh, hell. Was this Gaara 2.0? Was Shino jealous about being left out too?

"Furthermore, in that note, you only addressed Kakashi-sensei, Sakura, and Ichiraku Ramen. You did not address me in that note. Did you not consider that I may have harbored some worry for you as well?"

Yep. Shino was jealous, for sure.

A twinge of guilt erupted in Naruto's stomach. He honestly didn't mean to make his friends upset. It was just that…saving the jinchuuriki had seemed really important at the time…it _was_ important. But Naruto could have…

"I'm sorry," Naruto said. "I didn't mean to make you sad…or angry."

Shino just stared and stared through those black sunglasses. Naruto felt a shiver curl up and down his spine.

"Um…when we get back to Konoha, we can all have ramen together?" Naruto asked hopefully.

Shino gave a short nod. "That will suffice."

"You're going to buy me new clothes," Neji said.

"And me!" said Tenten and Ino in unison.

"Kay."

They left him alone after that.

Naruto breathed a sigh of relief as he sat down on the deck along with Fuu and Hinata.

For some reason, they were getting along really well. Fuu was saying something about how she'd met some guy on her trip who was super cute (Naruto had no idea who she was talking about). Hinata seemed to know, though, and was agreeing with her about this mystery guy's cuteness.

And Fuu was happy for another reason:

"You're my friend number one hundred and ten, su!" Fuu had declared.

Hinata blushed a pretty pink and smiled. "Thanks a lot, Fuu-san."

"Hi, guys!" Naruto greeted. "Wanna have some ramen? Courtesy of the Chopsticks Master of Konoha, ya know!"

"Yeah, su! We can have fugu ramen!" Fuu said.

Hinata's eyes sparkled with a mischief that surprised Naruto. "While you were gone, Naruto-kun, _I_ became Konoha's Number One Ramen Eating Champion," she said, smiling as his jaw dropped.

"WHAT?" he yelled.

Laughter broke out among the trio.

Roshi and Shikamaru shot Fuu, Hinata, and Naruto grumpy looks.

Something about "annoying and troublesome people who talk too much."

What a strange pair of friends.

It seemed that the band of foolish jinchuuriki didn't cause a war after all. They had brought about peace.

* * *

Meanwhile, at the Akatsuki lair, a very significant meeting was taking place.

Tobi had dropped the unconscious Hidan, Kakuzu, and Deidara off in a corner. He had pressing business to attend to.

"Zetsu, what's the update on Itachi and Sasuke?" he asked.

"Sasuke defeated Itachi," Zetsu rasped. "I have the whole thing recorded."

"Good." Tobi could get his hands on Sasuke at last, with Itachi out of the way…

"And on your end? Where are the jinchuuriki?" asked Zetsu.

"We've…suffered a setback," Tobi said. "But I've heard that a Five Kage Summit will be held in Konoha. Perhaps…"

He laced his fingers together.

In Konoha, he could…


	22. The War that Actually Was

The wooden boat finally reached the shores of the Land of Fire, and the journey to Konoha was a short three days.

A shamefaced Izumo and Kotetsu greeted them at the gates.

"Yo, guys, what's up?" Naruto said. "You both look so down."

Ino shot Naruto a _look_. "It's because of you, Naruto."

"Huh?"

"When you and… _Octopops_ …" She glanced at Killer B, trailing a few steps behind, somehow having gotten into a rap contest with Fuu. "When you two left the village without warning, who do you think got yelled at by Tsunade-sama?"

"But I left her a note!" Naruto protested.

"That won't save you, Naruto," said Kiba. "I dunno what's she's gonna do to you, but I bet it won't be pleasant. She was _not_ happy about your note."

Naruto wondered how his plants were holding up. Hopefully Kakashi-sensei wasn't upset at him too, unlike baa-chan and (he shuddered in fear) Sakura-chan.

Naruto was in for a hell of a treat (and not in a good way).

What he went through at the Hokage Tower was ammunition for terrifying nightmares that would haunt his mind for weeks on end.

"Shizune!" Tsunade-sama barked, upon laying eyes on the Chopsticks Master of Konoha after a month of absence.

"Y-yes, Tsunade-sama?" her poor apprentice-slash-paperwork handler squeaked, her back ramrod straight (what an odd sense of déjà vu filled the room).

"Give Naruto all the paperwork in that pile on the left-hand side of the room," Tsunade said, opening sake bottle three (once again, it wasn't even ten in the morning yet).

The fact that Tsunade didn't immediately start bellowing at Naruto was enough to give him a shock of wariness and pause.

_What was she up to?_

"Naruto-kun," said Shizune. "For the next six months, these will be your assignments as a ninja."

"W-what?" Naruto asked, slowly leafing through the slab of paperwork.

It was all just…Naruto shuddered.

_D-rank mission: Capture Tora the cat._

_D-rank mission: Babysit River daimyo's niece for three days._

_D-rank mission: Capture Tora the cat._

_D-rank mission: Paint Gozaburo the rich merchant's house._

_D-rank mission: Capture Tora the cat._

How many cats named Tora existed out there? Were they all clones of the same cat? Did Tora know how to perform Shadow Clone Jutsu? What the hell?

"And," Tsunade said, gesturing at the gigantic avalanche of paperwork on the right-hand side of the room. "During the Five Kage Summit tomorrow, Naruto, you will sit here in my room and file all the paperwork. Shizune will teach you how. After all, the paperwork all somehow pertains to you and your little adventure."

"B-but, baa-chan…!" Naruto spluttered.

"No arguments!" snapped Tsunade. "Don't you want to be Hokage? Well, this is part of that. You have to learn how to do paperwork when you reach this position."

Shizune gave Naruto a sympathetic smile. "Don't worry, Naruto-kun," she said. "Paperwork can be fun!"

Naruto just stared at her with disbelieving eyes.

And that was how Tsunade got her revenge. Naruto would suffer the same way _she_ had suffered for weeks on end, receiving and filing ridiculous reports about Naruto getting a 1,000,000,000 ryo bounty for blowing up a hot spring and running away with other villages' jinchuuriki.

Naruto would find out how his teammates had taken his absence when he was finally allowed to return to his apartment and was greeted by a freaking jungle growing in the living room.

"Yo, Naruto!" said Kakashi-sensei with a cheery smile, his eyes glued to a riveting page of Icha Icha Tactics. "I watered your plants, just like you asked me to. Right, Tenzo?"

The brown-haired man sitting next to Kakashi-sensei on the couch merely grunted in agreement. His eyes were bloodshot. "Senpai, you have to call me Yamato for this mission. And can I stop the Wood Release now? Your prank was successful and I'm tired."

Naruto never found out if Tenzo or Yamato or whatever his name was stopped the Wood Release, because another voice bellowing in the kitchen made his blood run cold.

"SHANNARO! SAI, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU IF YOU POKE ME WITH THOSE CHOPSTICKS AGAIN!" said a certain medic-nin.

Naruto gingerly tiptoed into the kitchen. A black-haired, pale boy was holding a pair of his favorite _(favorite!)_ chopsticks and wore a curiously blank smile.

"Sorry, Ug – I mean, Sakura-san," said the boy named Sai. "But according to the bingo book, your teammate, Naruto, has become world-renowned for causing serious damage with these weapons of mass destruction. I was wondering if…"

Sai spotted Naruto and smiled. "Hello, Orange Monster, Blonde Demon of the Leaf, and Chopsticks Master of Konoha! It's nice to meet you. I think those are funny nicknames. According to this book that I got from the library, you should call people by nicknames to become friends with them!"

_What. The. Hell. Was. Going. On?_

The juxtaposition of Sai's placid smile and Sakura's murderous glare was too much for poor Naruto.

He ran away from his apartment and didn't return for a good long while.

As he roamed the streets of Konoha aimlessly, trembling at the thought of what Sakura-chan and that Sai weirdo would do when he finally returned, someone's hand firmly grasped his shoulder.

Naruto turned around to meet the pouting, jealous eyes of one Godaime Kazekage.

"Naruto," Gaara greeted. "It's been a while."

Oh, hell. This was going to be Shino 2.0, wasn't it?

"Oh…hi, Gaara!" Naruto responded, scratching the back of his head nervously. "How's it going?"

"Very well, thank you." Gaara continued to stare at Naruto with that hurt expression. "I see that you've been very busy on an adventure without inviting me along, Naruto. Very busy indeed."

He held up that bingo book page. The one with Naruto's kabuki actor photo, with the words "WANTED" boldly shouting at the world that he was worth a bounty of 1,000,000,000 ryo.

Naruto thought fast, his stomach squirming guiltily once more. Maybe what worked on Shino would also work on Gaara?

It was worth a shot.

And Gaara deserved free ramen for the rest of his life, after all.

To Ichiraku it was.

And so, Naruto paid back the three thousand ryo he owed Ichiraku and got them the endorsement of the Kazekage himself.

All's well that ends well?

* * *

Meanwhile, another situation was panning out in the inn that the Raikage had booked for a few days.

Revenge…erm… _punishment_ …yes, punishment, was not a dish best served cold in the Raikage's world.

It was best served with an Iron Claw.

Poor B.

Well, at least he got his vacation, even if it was only for a short while.

* * *

The Five Kage Summit that took place the following day was the most bizarre and significant since the first summit, hosted by Tsunade's grandfather, Senju Hashirama, decades ago.

For starters, it wasn't exactly a Five Kage Summit, but more like a Five Kage plus the Takigakure village leader summit. (Fuu was thrilled at this development and told Shibuki that this meant that he was the official Takikage.)

It was also awkward that _two_ Mizukage attended rather than just one, and that Yagura had asked all the Kage plus Shibuki to immediately remove his friends and fellow jinchuuriki from the bingo book for rendering invaluable services to Kirigakure.

They all concurred after only a few minutes of deliberation.

One might have thought that the Hokage and Raikage would have been at loggerheads throughout the meeting, but surprisingly, they had found kindred spirits in each other, most probably due to being partners in suffering.

Naruto and B had caused them a lot of grief.

Or maybe Tsunade just agreed quickly so that the Five Kage Summit could wrap up. Her patience was sorely tested by the presence of two incredibly irritating bodyguards.

She cursed Homura and Koharu from the bottom of her heart for foisting _Danzo_ on her as one of her bodyguards. Just her luck that she'd be forced to watch her back for the whole summit just in case he'd try to stab her.

The situation called for a back-up bodyguard. She needed someone strong, reliable, Kage-level, someone who would be undoubtedly loyal to her one hundred percent and could actually take on Danzo in case he tried something.

Just her luck that the only person who fit that description was Jiraiya.

Where was he when all of this was going down? That was what Tsunade had wanted to know. Jiraiya could have been of real help in tracking down his idiot apprentice.

Jiraiya's answer to that was so incredibly Jiraiya.

He was doing research. For his new novel. Coincidentally, a novel for which he needed to hang out at some hot springs.

She responded by throwing him out of the window.

Luckily, he had survived to become her bodyguard, and thank goodness for that.

Because as soon as the topic turned to the Akatsuki, something very interesting happened.

Something that was exactly parallel to what had happened in the Five Kage Summit in the real world.

Spiky Aloe Vera Guy (also known as Zetsu) barged into the conference hall out of nowhere, yelling "HELLO!" and something about Uchiha Sasuke being in town.

And that was how the Fourth Ninja War started.

Funny how things work…


	23. Epilogue to Chaos

In that Infinite Tsukuyomi world, a lot of things were different. But a lot of things were the same. To compare the two worlds would take an exhaustive encyclopedia, but this poor narrator will try to summarize it in one chapter.

Madara still rose again, and the Juubi was resurrected by "Tobi," otherwise known as Uchiha Obito. His confrontation with Kakashi and Naruto – who reminded him so much of his old self – brought about a massive change of heart, and the tide of the war turned lopsided.

Naruto and Kurama's tentative peace bloomed into a lasting friendship when the fox, in a rare act of altruism, saved Hyuuga Hinata and Hyuuga Neji from almost certain death at the hands of Pain. When Naruto asked why, the Kyuubi told him to shut up, hiding his face in his paws to mask his blush of embarrassment.

The band of foolish jinchuuriki fought valiantly against the motley Atatsuki crew, and Gaara gained long-lasting fame for his awesomeness and rescue of the Ichibi, Shukaku, from the Gedo Statue in which he was imprisoned.

The previous Hokage were resurrected thanks to the efforts of Orochimaru and one Uchiha Sasuke, once again exactly like what happened in the real world.

Namikaze Minato was nonplussed and very proud to discover that his son was universally known as the "Chopsticks Master of Konoha." He made sure to tell Kushina about it when he was finally released from the Edo Tensei. She was very pleased to tell Minato that she already knew all about it, thank you very much: after becoming friends, Kurama had granted Naruto access to the tiny vestige of her lingering chakra in the Eight Trigrams Seal, and the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero and Blonde Demon of the Leaf had an epic and emotional family reunion.

Jiraiya, Pain, Konan, and Naruto had an epic fight involving toads, Sage Mode, hastily learned Rasen-Shurikens, Shinra Tensei, 600 billion paper bombs, and _The Tale of a Gutsy Ninja_. In the end, Jiraiya's wayward students did reconcile with their estranged master, and went down in history as antiheroes.

Having all the jinchuuriki on the Allied Forces' side was a great asset for them when fighting the 100,000 strong White Zetsu and Edo Tensei army. In particular, the White Zetsu were memorable for the ways in which they were taken down: encased in molten lava, disintegrated in blue flames, boiling water, or bitten by poisonous insects (Fuu and Shino were a _great_ tag team).

Karatachi Yagura regained his reputation upon saving a large section of Kiri ninja from the Wood Release: Cutting Sprigs Jutsu that was released by the Juubi. Isobu's shell _was_ as hard as diamond, after all.

Among the things that stayed the same, Otsutsuki Kaguya was one. She was resurrected after Madara cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi (how odd, a dream within a dream) and pulled out all the bijuu from their respective jinchuuriki, who'd only managed to stay alive thanks to each bijuu lopping off a bit of its chakra for them to hold onto, and in the case of Naruto, had Yin Kurama sealed into him.

Ironic that she would be defeated by a combination of chopsticks, Reverse Harem Jutsu, and the Yin and Yang powers that the Sage of Six Paths had given to Sasuke and Naruto respectively. (That was how Naruto had managed to infuriate Zetsu – to seal away the Rabbit Goddess with freaking _chopsticks_ would have sent any loyal son of hers into absolute rage.)

The differences between the Infinite Tsukuyomi world and the real world were indeed too numerous to fully explain, but Killer B tried to ponder on them anyway.

As he did, a bright light filled his head as a very familiar voice yelled into his ear: "OCTOPOPS, WAKE UP!"

And Killer B did wake up: with a smile.

It was a fabulous dream.

* * *

"Octopops, are you sure that this is the right way to Suirendo?" asked Naruto, squinting at the map he was holding in his one lone hand.

"Of course, ya fool, we're not off-course. Eight-o says for sure that this is the way to Suirendo," Killer B rapped.

It was six months after the war, and Killer B had finally gotten permission from the Raikage to go on that elusive vacation. Tsunade, in a miraculous stroke of luck, had also permitted Naruto to leave the village on a short trip, after ascertaining that he would be able to handle himself with just one arm.

And for Killer B, there was only one way to commemorate the memories of his fellow jinchuuriki – to get to know their bijuu better. Naruto was only too happy to agree.

So road trip it was. They'd only just met Kokuo, hanging out in some natural hot springs in a forest near Iwa, but as for the Yonbi – no, the King of the Sage Monkeys, Handsome Monkey King, Great Sage Equalling Heaven…they'd _asked_ him for directions in their shared mind space, and dutifully marked the location on the map, but…

Now if only they could _find_ Son Goku's home, that would be great. Naruto didn't know how long it had been since they'd been to their last ramen stand, but it was definitely far too long.

 _"Naruto, it was only three days ago that you went to Sugoi Ramen in Reihoku Town,"_ Kurama grumbled. _"What the hell is it with you and ramen? Eat something else for a change."_

 _"I think asking Naruto to eat something other than ramen is kinda like asking B to stop speaking in rap,"_ Gyuuki commiserated. _"It's never gonna happen."_

And then Son appeared in their minds with a sigh. _"Are your jinchuuriki here yet? Hurry up already. I've been waiting for hours."_

 _"Oh,"_ said Gyuuki, straightening up in anticipation. _"See, Kurama thinks that we have to go three hundred kilometers east, but I recall that the last time I came to Suirendo, I went three hundred kilometers west…"_

 _"I told you to go three hundred kilometers north, you idiots!"_ Son snapped. _"Ugh, just hold on. I'll pick up you and your foolish jinchuuriki. I'm tired of waiting."_

Naruto and Killer B exchanged excited grins.

They'd heard from Kokuo about all of Han's life, and had hastily jotted down everything in a scroll to honor his memory. Surprisingly, he did in fact own a hot spring in Iwa and was a local celebrity, just as in the Infinite Tsukuyomi. That was weird.

Was Roshi really a grumpy old man who loved farming as well, in Son's recollection of him?

They had to find out.

Nine foolish jinchuuriki and nine foolish bijuu.

Naruto and Killer B bumped fists as they spotted the huge monkey crossing the forest with a single massive leap.

It was truly a sight to behold.

As wonderful as the dream was, reality was better.


End file.
